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BR  121  .073  1908 
Orelli 

Peculiarity  of  the 
religion  of  Bible 


Foreign  Religious  Series 


Edited  by 
R.  J.  COOKE,  D.  D. 


Second  Series.    i6mo.  cloth.    Each  40  cents,  net. 


DO  WE  NEED  CHRIST  FOR 

COMMUNION  WITH  GOD  ? 

By  Professor  Ludwig  Lemme,  of  the  University 
of  Heidelberg 


ST.   PAUL  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

(two  parts) 
By  Professor  Paul  Feine,  of  the  University  of  Vienna 


THE  NEW  MESSAGE  IN  THE   TEACHING 

OF  JESUS 

By  Professor  Philipp  Bachmann,  of  the  University 

of  Erlangen 


THE  PECULIARITY  OF  THE  RELIGION 

OF  THE  BIBLE 

By  Professor  Conrad  Von  Orelli,  of  the  University 
of  Basle 


OUR  LORD 

By  Professor  K.  Miiller,  of  the  University  of  Erlangen 


The  Peculiarity  of  the 
Religion  of  the  Bible 


By 
CONRAD  VONvORELLI 

Professor  of  Theology  at  Basle 


NEW   YORK:    EATON   &   MAINS 
CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS  &  GRAHAM 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
EATON  &  MAINS. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  general  character  and  purpose  of 
these  books  have  already  been  indicated  in 
the  Introduction  to  the  entire  series,  so  that 
on  the  publication  of  this  the  second  part  it 
need  only  be  said  that  each  of  the  six  vol- 
umes in  this  series  has  a  peculiar  value  of 
its  own.  The  authors  are  recognized  schol- 
ars of  high  rank  in  their  several  fields  of 
research,  and  while  the  task  of  translating 
the  extremely  involved  German  of  some  of 
them  into  good  English  has  been  at  times 
most  difficult,  and  something  may  have  been 
lost  in  the  process,  nevertheless  their  fine 
perception  of  divine  truth,  no  less  than  their 
scientific  method  of  treatment,  will  appeal  to 
the  honest  judgment  of  thoughtful  men  and 
will  strengthen  conviction  in  the  validity  of 
evangelical  teaching. 

In  St.  Paul  as  a  Theologian  Professor 
Feine  exhibits  Pauline  theology  as  the  con- 
tent of  the  apostle's  missionary  preaching 
based  upon  his  personal  experience  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  not,  as  certain  critics  affirm,  an 
attempted  systematizing  of  Christian  thought 
5 


6  Prefatory  Note 

modified  or  enlarged  by  odds  and  ends  of 
Rabbinic  theology  brought  over  by  Paul 
from  Judaism.  Incidentally,  in  opposition 
to  the  criticism  of  Wrede,  Weinel,  and 
others,  the  author  shows  the  dependence  of 
Paul  upon  Jesus. 

The  Peculiarity  of  the  Religion  of 
the  Bible,  by  Professor  Orelli,  is  an 
answer  to  the  ancient  query  now  often  heard 
among  some  theologians  of  a  liberal  type 
and  not  a  few  specialists  in  the  department 
of  Comparative  Religion,  "Are  not  Arbana 
and  Pharpar  better  than  all  the  waters  in 
Israel,  may  I  not  wash  in  them  and  be 
clean  ?"  A  fitting  companion  to  this  volume 
is  The  New  Message  in  the  Teaching  of 
Jesus,  setting  forth  the  profound  originality 
of  the  Master  Teacher.  Do  We  Need 
Christ  for  Communion  with  God?  and 
the  excellent  volume  entitled  Our  Lord  pre- 
sent in  a  very  clear  and  satisfactory  manner 
the  impossibility  of  eliminating  or  of  sub- 
ordinating the  Christ  of  Christendom  in 
Christian  thought  and  life. 

It  is  only  stating  exact  truth  when  we  say 
that  notwithstanding  the  immense  learning 
and  intellectual  brilliancy  of  eminent  schol- 


Prefatory  Note  7 

ars  in  the  camp  of  so-called  liberal  theology, 
there  is  evidence,  as  may  be  seen  in  a  recent 
work,  The  Modern  Jesus  Cult,  by  Professor 
Wilhelm  von  Schnecten,  himself  a  radical  of 
the  modern  school,  that  the  equally  brilliant 
and  scientifically  equipped  defenders  of  the 
historic  faith  have  shown  the  emptiness  of 
radical  thought  and  fully  established  the 
historicity  of  the  gospel  records. 

On  the  whole,  we  are  of  the  opinion  that 
these  volumes,  the  value  of  which  is  not  in 
quantity  but  in  quality,  will  be  found  help- 
ful and  suggestive,  and  that  a  comprehen- 
sive survey  of  the  important  subjects  cov- 
ered by  this  foreign  religious  series  will  jus- 
tify the  statement  that  evangelical  faith  has 
nothing  to  fear  from  unfriendly  criticism. 

Editor. 


THE  PECULIARITY  OF  THE  RELI- 
GION OF  THE  BIBLE 

I 

The  Old  Testament  Religion 

"Lo,  the  people  shall  dwell  alone,  and  shall 
not  be  reckoned  among  the  nations." 

Thus  Balaam,  the  heathenish  seer,  charac- 
terized in  his  first  parable  the  people  upon 
whom  devolved  the  highest  mission  in  the 
history  of  religion.  That  we  have  to  do 
here  with  a  real  prophecy  is  proved  by  the 
many  thousand  years  of  history  of  that  peo- 
ple who  even  in  their  dispersion  among  the 
nations  can  never  wholly  deny  their  racial 
peculiarity  and  mental  separateness.  The 
Hebrew  race  owes  this  peculiarity  above 
everything  else  to  its  religion,  which  was 
unique  among  the  religions  of  the  nations, 
as  unique  as  Christianity  which  arose  from 
it  and  which,  as  the  highest  blossom,  was 
destined  to  become  the  universal  religion  for 
all  nations. 

And  yet  these  two,  Judaism  and  Chris- 
9 


io  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

tianity,  do  not  stand  so  isolated  in  the  world 
as  has  formerly  been  imagined.  To  those 
genealogical  lines  by  which  the  Israelites 
felt  themselves  connected  with  the  entire 
human  race  (Gen.  io.  n)  correspond  also 
religious  relations.  It  is  true  that  between 
the  most  diverse  religions  inner,  though  not 
historical,  relations  may  be  proved,  which 
relations  rest  on  the  analogy  of  every  human 
spiritual  and  mental  life  biblically  expressed ; 
on  the  self-manifestation  of  God  to  all  men. 
But,  as  a  rule,  homogeneousness  is  much 
more  apparent  where  it  concerns  consan- 
guineous tribes.  As  is  known,  the  people 
of  Israel  belonged  linguistically  and  ethno- 
graphically  to  the  so-called  Semitic  group; 
we  shall  therefore  not  be  surprised  to  find 
here  also  the  nearest  relatives  as  far  as  reli- 
gion is  concerned.  How  was  the  Israelitish 
or  Old  Testament  religion  related  to  the 
religion  of  the  Edomites,  Moabites,  Ammon- 
ites, Arameans,  and  other  nations  of  like 
blood,  as  well  as  to  the  religion  of  the  more 
distant  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  who  also 
belonged  to  the  Semitic  group? 

But  let  us  first  examine  what  is  meant  by 
the  Old  Testament  religion.     Wellhausen, 


Religion  of  the  Bible  ii 

Stade,  and  others  assert  that  the  old  Israel- 
itish  national  religion  was  something  differ- 
ent from  what  is  usually  understood  by  the 
Old  Testament  religion,  namely,  a  worship  of 
Jehovah1  as  a  limited  tribal  or  national  god 
who  was  originally  a  god  of  weather  and 
war,  but  exercised  no  authority  beyond  his 
people  and  country.  He  was  not  considered 
as  an  absolute  ruler  upon  earth  or  as  creator 
of  the  universe;  nor  did  ethical  qualities 
belong  to  his  nature,  though  ethical  attributes 
were  occasionally  ascribed  to  him.  Thus  this 
Is raelitish- Jehovah  religion,  as  to  its  inner 
content,  did  not  materially  differ  from  the 
Chemosh-religion  of  the  Moabites,  the  Mo- 
loch-religion of  the  Ammonites,  the  Baal- 
service  of  the  Canaanites,  etc.  Since  the  time 
of  Moses,  however,  Jehovah  was  looked  upon 
as  a  jealous  God,  who  on  his  soil  and  among 
his  people  would  tolerate  no  other  gods 
'(monolatry,  not  monotheism),  but  who  nev- 
ertheless was  to  share  in  the  government 
with  the  Cananaean  Baalim,  which  had  al- 
ready possessed  the  country  and  would  not 
be  driven  from  the  sacred  places.     It  was 


1  For  the  name  Yahve  used  by  the  author,  I  have  sub- 
stituted the  form  familiar  to  English  readers. — Editor. 


12  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

only  in  the  eighth  century  B.  C.  that  the 
so-called  "literary  prophets,"  headed  by 
Amos,  proclaimed  Jehovah  as  the  sole  ruler 
and  at  the  same  time  declared  his  covenant 
with  Israel,  which  was  formerly  considered 
as  a  natural  relation,  as  one  established  upon 
ethical  conditions;  and  as  such  was  indis- 
soluble. These  prophets  were  the  founders 
of  the  ethical  monotheism  which  after  the 
exile  became  the  religion  of  the  people. 

In  this  conception  of  the  school  above  men- 
tioned there  lies  a  fundamental  error.  Ac- 
cording to  my  opinion  this  false  notion  has 
been  best  refuted  by  the  Scotch  scholar  James 
Robertson.1  But  even  such  a  critical  investi- 
gator as  Professor  Giesebrecht  has  shown 
the  untenableness  of  this  view.  It  is  strange 
therefore  that  Professor  Stade  in  his  Com- 
pendium of  the  Old  Testament  theology 
(1905)  should  repeat  it  again  with  such 
dogmatic  confidence.  It  is  the  more  pleasing 
that  Professor  Bantsch2  has  very  recently 
emphasized  in  the  most  powerful  manner 
the  necessity  of  revising  the  historical-evolu- 
tion schemes  of  the  Wellhausen  school  after 


1  The  Ancient  Religion  of  Israel  before  the  Eighth  Cen- 
tury (German  second  edition,  Stuttgart,  1905). 

2Altorientalischer  und  Israelitischer  Monotheismus,  1906. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  13 

he  had  convinced  himself  especially  by  com- 
paring the  religio-historical  connections  that 
it  would  not  do  to  press  the  old  Israelitish 
history  of  religion  into  the  scheme  of  the 
evolution  theorists. 

In  brief  we  state  the  following:  Even  if 
we  should  admit  without  examination  the 
literary  critical  results  of  a  Kuenen,  Well- 
hausen  and  others  which  we  could  not  advise, 
the  essential  traits  of  ethical  monotheism, 
it  must  be  admitted,  already  existed  long  be- 
fore the  time  of  Amos,  as  is  seen  in  the  his- 
tory of  Elijah,  whose  compositions  these 
critics  put  before  Amos,  and  especially  in 
the  ancient  Jehovah-document  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, which  is  certainly  of  higher  antiquity. 
Think  of  Genesis  2.  sqq.,  the  history  of  the 
creation  of  man,  of  the  paradise,  the  fall, 
the  deluge,  building  of  the  tower  of  Babel, 
destruction  of  Sodom,  etc.  To  avoid  these 
instances  Stade  would  indeed  eliminate  these 
portions  from  the  ancient  Jehovah-document 
and  consider  them  as  very  recent  Hebrew 
revisions  of  foreign  materials  which  orig- 
inated shortly  before  the  exile  in  the  time 
of  Babylonian-Assyrian  influence.  But  here 
the  arbitrary  character  of  the  criticism  is  too 


14  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

notorious.  The  unaffectedly  naive  manner 
in  which  God  is  spoken  of  in  these  selections, 
as  coming  down  from  heaven  upon  earth  to 
view  the  building  made  by  men,  of  com- 
municating to  Abram  his  purpose  to  convince 
himself  personally  whether  the  inhabitants  of 
Sodom  were  as  bad  as  their  reputation, 
shows  us  indeed  the  oldest  Hebrew  writings 
which  have  come  down  to  us.  Notwith- 
standing the  childlike  imperfection  in  which 
God  is  here  presented  and  exhibited,  he 
is  nevertheless  the  Almighty  God  who  dwells 
in  heaven,  the  creator  of  everything  which 
is  on  earth,  the  all-ruling  one  who  exercises 
righteous  judgment  over  all  nations,  and  so 
by  no  means  a  limited  tribal  or  national  God 
in  whose  character  the  ethical  was  no  con- 
stituent element. 

These  primeval  testimonies  point  back  to 
the  pre-monarchical  period.  Before  Samuel 
Israel  must  already  have  had  this  sublime 
knowledge  of  God.  From  whom  could  it 
come  but  from  Moses,  whom  all  ancient 
documents  revere  as  the  founder  of  the  Is- 
raelitish  national  religion?  But  Moses  also 
proclaimed  the  God  whom  he  preached,  not 
as  one  who  had  thus  far  been  entirely  un- 


Religion  of  the  Bible  15 

known,  but  as  the  God  well  known  to  the 
fathers.  The  name  which  all  narrators  of 
the  Pentateuch  mention  as  the  first  which 
stood  in  close  relation  to  the  God  of  Israel 
is  Abram.1  This  name,  according  to  all 
analogy,  can  only  have  been  that  of  a  human 
individual,  not  that  of  a  god  nor  of  a  tribe, 
as  one  has  tried  to  make  himself  believe ;  and 
that  this  personality  must  be  considered  as 
historical,  can  today  be  scientifically  affirmed 
with  greater  certainty,  as  may  be  shown 
from  the  monuments,  than  it  could  have  been 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago. 

When  we  speak  of  Old  Testament  or  Is- 
raelitish  religion,  we  mean  that  which  the 
religiously  enlightened  Israelites  since 
Moses,  even  since  Abram,  professed.  That 
this  monotheism  became  purified  and  de- 
veloped itself  from  Abram  to  Moses,  from 
Moses  down  to  Amos  and  Isaiah,  from  these 
down  to  Jeremiah,  is  also  our  opinion.  The 
Bible  itself  bears  witness  to  this,  when  for 
instance  it  commences  a  new  epoch  of  reli- 
gious development  with  Moses  and  marks 


1  Properly  Abiram — "  my  father  is  exalted  " :  a  beautiful 
expression  which  denotes  at  once  God's  eminence  and 
intimacy!  See  the  analogous  formations,  Abishua,  Abim- 
elech,  Abinadab,  etc. 


1 6  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

this  epoch  by  making  known  a  new  name 
of  God:  "And  I  appeared  unto  Abraham, 
unto  Isaac,  and  unto  Jacob  as  El  Shaddai 
(by  the  name  of  God  Almighty),  but  by  my 
name  Jehovah  was  I  not  yet  known  to  them" 
(Exod.  6.  3;  see  3.  13  sq.).  A  new  name 
never  means  for  the  ancient  Hebrews  a  mere 
formal  change  in  the  appellation,  but  has 
always  its  objective  cause  in  the  new  rela- 
tions of  the  named.  Applied  to  God  the  new 
name  means  a  new  disclosure  of  his  deeper 
being,  and  according  to  this  an  advance  of 
man  in  his  understanding.  "Evolution' '  is 
not  wholly  a  bad  term  for  this  progress,  for 
it  expresses  a  self-unfolding  of  the  Deity 
which  allows  man  to  look  deeper  into  his 
nature. 

It  may  also  be  frankly  admitted  that,  in 
this  people  as  in  other  nations,  higher  and 
lower  religious  tendencies  present  themselves 
simultaneously.  The  God  comprehended  by 
Moses  became  the  common  possession  of  the 
whole  people  only  incompletely,  because  hea- 
thenishly  disposed  undercurrents  still  pre- 
vailed among  them  and  often  became  over- 
whelming, especially  when  the  people  were 
scattered  over  Canaan  and  entered  into  tribal 


Religion  of  the  Bible  17 

relations  with  the  older  settlers,  who  sur- 
passed them  in  culture.  But  with  Professor 
Ed.  Koenig,1  one  must  retain  as  a  fact,  his- 
torically demanded  and  conceded,  that  from 
the  beginning  of  the  national  history  of 
Israel  we  notice  a  purer  religion  among  the 
appointed  religious  leaders  of  the  nation, 
than  may  be  perceived  among  their  cognate 
neighbors,  or  the  still  more  heathenishly  dis- 
posed Canaanites. 

1  Die   Haiiptproblem    der  Altisraelitischen   Religionsge- 
schichte,  1884,  G  7.  sq. 


1 8  The  Peculiarity  of  the 


II 

Personal  Authors  and  Bearers  of  the 
Religion  in  Israel 

Whence  this  higher  knowledge  of  God? 
Whether  we  abide  by  Moses  or  go  back  to 
Abram,  according  to  the  testimony  of  all 
Pentateuchal  sources,  it  is  always  an  indi- 
vidual personality  which  is  mentioned  as  the 
human  starting  point.  This  is  of  great  im- 
portance. It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that 
personal  founders  of  the  different  religions 
are  known,  whereas  others  appear  as  the  pro- 
duct and  possession  of  the  whole  of  a  tribe 
or  nation.  This  difference,  however,  is  in- 
deed only  a  relative  one.  On  the  one  hand 
the  so-called  founders  of  religion  themselves 
stand  on  a  national  native  soil,  whose  influ- 
ence on  them  is  easily  perceptible;  on  the 
other  hand  in  the  origin  of  all  religions,  we 
must  imagine  some  especially  endowed  and 
inspired  individuals  as  being  more  productive 
than  others,  just  as  in  the  progress  of  cul- 
ture, whether  wTe  know  their  names  or  not. 
Yet  it  is  nevertheless  of  importance  for  the 


Religion  of  the  Bible  19 

whole  peculiarity  and  life  of  a  religion, 
whether  it  originated,  so  to  speak,  from  one 
personality  and  is  ruled  by  him,  or  whether 
it  developed  more  collectively  and  is  con- 
sidered as  the  product  of  the  whole.  When 
a  personal  genius  has  impregnated  the  whole 
of  a  religion  and  is  considered  as  its  origina- 
tor or  bearer,  the  acknowledgment  is  ex- 
pressed therein  in  the  first  place  that  religion 
in  its  foundation  and  origin  is  a  personal 
experience ;  and  in  the  second  place  that  the 
difference  in  the  faculty  of  experiencing  this 
must  be  very  great  among  individuals.  Only 
a  few  individuals  become  distinguished  be- 
yond others  by  this  faculty,  and  hence  be- 
come authorities  for  others. 

Now,  neither  among  the  Greeks  in  his- 
torical time,  the  Romans,  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, nor  Babylonians,  do  we  find  such  reli- 
gious authorities  as  a  Moses,  Samuel,  and  all 
the  great  prophets,  an  Amos  and  Hosea,  an 
Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  represent.  Since  in  our 
time  we  often  meet  with  the  assertion  that 
the  Israelitish  religion  is  wholly  like  the 
Babylonian  and  an  offshoot  from  it,  let  us 
therefore  look  for  once  at  the  ancient 
Babylonians  and  Assyrians,   and  ascertain 


20  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

who  were  their  authorities  in  matters  of  reli- 
gion. One  might  perhaps  refer  to  the  fact 
that  Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon,  declared 
that  he  received  his  laws  from  the  sun-god, 
just  as  Moses  derived  his  from  Jehovah.  But 
in  the  introduction  to  that  code  that  ruler 
mainly  claims  divine  authority  for  his  legis- 
lation which,  so  far  as  the  contents  are  con- 
cerned, has  nothing  to  do  with  religion.  For 
religion  itself  the  Babylonians  never  appealed 
to  Hammurabi.  Every  Babylonian  could  have 
certain  religious  exercises,  that  is,  dreams, 
apparitions,  omens  or  visitations  of  divine 
displeasure.  In  such  a  case  he  could  consult 
the  interpreters  of  dreams  and  signs  who 
formed  a  separate  class  of  the  priesthood; 
or  he  could  ask  the  atoning  priests  who  knew 
which  rites  and  sayings  must  be  applied  to 
banish  the  evil.  This  priesthood  was  in  so 
far  an  authority  for  him,  but  only  on  account 
of  its  superior  knowledge.  Like  the  Egyp- 
tian, it  possessed  a  transmitted  knowledge 
of  the  divine  and  demoniacal  powers  and  of 
the  formulas  for  their  exorcism.  Such  tra- 
ditions of  magic  were  easily  propagated 
from  one  generation  to  another;  they  did 
not  require  in  the  practitioner  any  ethico- 


Religion  of  the  Bible  21 

religious  conditions.  Another  Babylonian 
sacerdotal  body  mediated  to  the  people  astro- 
logical knowledge;  its  brightest  minds  had 
most  ingeniously  observed  the  course  of  the 
stars  and  made  possible  the  calculations  of 
the  course  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets. 
This  body  was  the  authority  for  fixing  the 
calendar  with  the  necessary  instructions  for 
the  correct  use  of  certain  days  ruled  by 
special  influences  of  the  stars;  but  on  the 
whole  this  was  no  religion  but  a  conception 
of  the  world  or  indeed  a  religiously  colored 
cosmology.  As  prominent  as  these  efforts 
were  in  a  physical  respect,  and  great  as  was 
the  acumen  and  methodical  endurance  to 
bring  them  about,  as  little  did  it  require  a 
religious  experience  or  illumination.  Hence 
the  personality  of  these  Babylonian  or  Egyp- 
tian soothsayers  and  astrologers  was  wholly 
unimportant  for  the  matter  itself.  It  only 
concerned  the  correct  handling  of  magical 
technics. 

This  difference  between  the  alleged  reli- 
gions and  the  Biblical  is  very  important. 
Its  significance  becomes  clear  at  once  when 
one  realizes  what  religion  means.  As  truly, 
in  the  first  place,  as  religion  is  a  revelation 


2.2  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

of  man  to  God,  more  accurately,  such  a  reve- 
lation as  the  deity  with  immediate  certainty 
makes  to  man  as  ruler1 ;  so  is  it  according  to 
its  origin  and  essence  a  property  and  an  ex- 
pression of  the  human  personal  life.  There- 
fore, the  more  personal  a  religion  is  the  more 
original  and  vital  it  is.  We  shall  therefore 
not  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  higher  reli- 
gions are  just  such  as  are  their  personal 
founders  and  originators,  who  according  to 
the  conviction  of  their  adherents  experienced 
the  deity  in  an  extraordinary  manner,  where- 
as religions  which  came  out  from  a  person- 
ally undetermined  tribal  or  national  circle, 
generally  occupy  a  lower  degree. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion  that  from  the  beginning  it  is  con- 
sciously witnessed  by  such  men  of  God  who 
had  themselves  experienced  God's  manifesta- 
tions. This  concerns  here  not  merely  a 
founder  of  religion  who,  like  Abram  or 
Moses,  had  belonged  to  remote  antiquity, 
but  in  the  bright  light  of  history,  as  the  ex- 
amples of  an  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Zechariah,   and  others  prove.     One  might 


1  Orelli,  Handbuch  der  allgemeinen  Religionsgeschichte, 
1899,  pp.  1  sqq. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  2$ 

call  such  men  religious  geniuses;  but  the 
term  would  be  unsuitable  because  these  Is- 
raelitish  prophets  were  conscious  of  owing 
their  knowledge  and  their  word  not  to  their 
own  creative  genius,  but  to  an  experience  of 
God,  a  revelation  whereby  they  wholly  knew 
themselves  as  the  recipients.  Who  was  the 
giver  of  these  revelations? 


24  The  Peculiarity  of  the 


III 
The  Personally  Living  God  of  Israel 

The  correlate  to  this  knowledge  of  God  by 
some  persons  forms  the  God  who  makes  him- 
self known  to  them.  This  God  is  absolutely 
personal.  This  yields  a  second  characteristic 
whereby  this  religion  differs  from  those  of 
cognate  nations  which  were  in  part  outward- 
ly alike.  There  doubtless  existed  an  inner 
relationship  between  Jehovah,  the  God  of 
Israel,  and  the  national  deities  of  the  Edom- 
ites,  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Arameans.  A 
closer  examination  shows  that  these  nations 
too  were  not  far  from  being  monotheistic. 
It  is  an  erroneous  idea  of  some  modern 
scholars  who  think  that  from  the  beginning 
these  tribes  had  only  a  particular  god  in 
view  whose  powers,  according  to  their  ideas, 
were  confined  to  the  narrow  limits  of  their 
territory. 

This  view  is  connected  with  the  assump- 
tion that  belief  in  one  God  is  generally  the 
result  only  of  a  long  historical  development 


Religion  of  the  Bible  25 

From  belief  in  demons  (Animism)  developed 
in  time  belief  in  gods,  and  from  this  finally 
belief  in  God.  This  hypothesis  is  neither 
supported  by  history  nor  by  the  condition  of 
savages  of  the  present  time.  In  the  first  in- 
stance we  find  in  China  belief  in  a  supreme 
God  in  heaven  as  early  as  the  coexisting 
belief  in  spirits  or  ancestral  cult.  But  even 
among  wholly  savage  African  and  American 
tribes  one  was  surprised  to  find  a  widely 
spread  belief  in  a  supernatural  God,  in  a 
God  plainly  in  heaven,  to  whom  not  seldom 
is  ascribed  the  creation  of  the  universe,  and 
who  is  also  not  wholly  lacking  in  ethical 
character.  I  refer  for  the  Africans  to  my 
book  (Allgemeine  Religionsgeschichte),  p. 
745  s<¥i'  '>  f or  the  American  red  men  to  p. 
775  s<¥i'  >  f°r  the  Mongol-Tartaric  nations 
which  are  addicted  to  Shamanism  (spirit- 
cult)  to  p.  89 ;  here  we  only  quote  two  other 
examples : 

The  missionary  Allegret,  a  careful  ob- 
server, reported  at  the  Religious  Historical 
Congress  in  Basel,  1904,  about  the  "Fan" 
people  on  the  Congo,  who  had  newly  come 
from  the  bush  and  up  to  this  time  had  neither 
been  in  contact  with  Christianity  nor  with 


26  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

Islamism.  This  tribe  is  so  little  civilized  that 
anthropophagy  is  practised  by  it ;  but  besides 
the  customary  superstitious  notions  and  cus- 
toms which  it  has  in  common  with  the  Ban- 
tu-tribes, Allegret  discovered  in  time  and  in- 
deed among  the  older  people  and  those  mem- 
bers of  the  tribe  who  remained  more  in  the 
interior  of  the  country,  an  ancient  belief  in 
God  which  is  expressed  in  the  divine  name 
Nzame  (just  as  many  other  Bantu-tribes). 
Of  this  God  attributes  are  predicated  in 
terms  belonging  to  a  language  now  no  longer 
used,  like:  "The  Almighty,  the  supreme 
judge,  the  king  of  kings,  the  father  of  life." 
This  God,  which  the  "Fan"  people  before 
they  met  the  whites  represented  to  them- 
selves as  being  black,  but  to  which  they  now 
ascribe  a  white  color,  forsook  them,  accord- 
ing to  their  account,  because  of  their  dis- 
obedience.1 

A  second  example  from  an  entirely  differ- 
ent ethnographical  territory,  may  be  taken 
from  the  Australasian  Negroes.  These  are 
classed  as  the  lowest  race  of  men.  Compar- 
ing structure  of  body  and  carriage  they  are 


1Allegret's  notices  are  given  completely  in  the  Revue 
de  L'Histoire  des  Religions,  1906,  pp.  1  sqq. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  2.y 

said  to  bear  a  resemblance  to  apes  beyond 
all  others.  In  civilization  they  stand  just  as 
degraded.  They  have  no  metals,  no  bows, 
no  pottery,  no  fixed  dwellings.  In  regard  to 
religion  they  have  long  been  quoted  as  tribes 
which  had  no  real  religion  but  a  wild  Anim- 
ism. But  Dampier,  the  first  European  to 
discover  them,  having  been  driven  by  a 
storm  to  their  coast  in  1688,  has  pointed  out 
that  they  were  always  without  the  two  upper 
incisors.  He  praised  their  unselfishness,  al- 
though they  were  the  most  miserable  people 
he  knew,  in  that  they  shared  everything 
among  themselves,  so  that  the  old  and  weak 
among  them  never  suffered  need.  An  unex- 
pected light  has  now  been  thrown  upon  these 
meager  notices  since  these  savages  have  be- 
come better  known.  In  the  first  place  it  has 
been  ascertained  that  all  these  tribes  worship 
a  highest  being,  called  Darumiihin  or  Bunjil, 
commonly  Biamban  (Lord)  or  Papang 
(Father).  This  God,  who  is  also  considered 
as  the  creator,  is  benevolent  and  kind,  but 
very  severe  against  the  transgressors  of  the 
laws  and  injunctions  prevalent  in  the  tribes. 
The  real  name  of  God  should  only  be  men- 
tioned in  the  Bora,  that  is,  in  his  mysteries. 


28  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

An  image  of  him  was  used  in  these  mysteries, 
but  it  was  destroyed  after  the  act  of  conse- 
cration. Before  this  image  of  the  god,  the 
young  people  were  made  acquainted  with  the 
religious  injunctions:  reverence  for  age, 
avoidance  of  all  inordinate  sexual  desires, 
etc.  At  the  same  time  their  stomachs  were 
thoroughly  worked  to  cast  out  eager  desire 
and  selfishness ;  the  breaking  out  of  the  front 
teeth,  which  act  also  belonged  to  this  drastic 
religious  instruction,  had  undoubtedly  a  like 
significance ;  the  beast-of-prey  nature  in  man 
was  to  be  removed  thereby.  These  rites, 
which  according  to  what  has  been  stated, 
must  have  been  peculiar  to  these  Australa- 
sians long  before  their  contact  with  Euro- 
peans, prove  again  that  a  very  primitive  re- 
ligious degree  may  contain  high  elements  of 
a  knowledge  of  God.  So-called  Animism  by 
no  means  excludes  the  worship  of  a  Father- 
God  and  Creator,  and  it  might  also  exercise 
ethical  influence  in  the  noblest  sense  of  the 
word.  If  by  Animism  one  understands  be- 
lief in  countless  spirits,  God  can  be  distin- 
guished from  them  in  the  most  positive  man- 
ner, and,  as  Andrew  Lang  has  demonstrated, 
it  is  an  undemonstrable  hypothesis  that  is 


Religion  of  the  Bible  29 

given  out  from  them.1  It  has,  for  instance, 
often  been  thought  that  the  idea  of  the  high- 
est God  has  developed  from  the  analogy  of 
the  human  chiefs  and  rulers,  as  if  these  nat- 
ural men  had  found  it  necessary  to  supply 
also  the  realm  of  spirits  with  a  regent.  But 
this  worship  of  a  God  in  heaven  is  found 
also  among  such  African  tribes  which  have 
no  kings  and  hardly  chiefs,  as  among  these 
Australians,  where  political  rule  is  very  little 
developed. 

Reverting  from  this  glance  at  the  lowest 
peoples  to  the  more  nobly  endowed  Semites, 
we  have  no  reason  to  oppose  the  belief  that 
among  them  from  time  immemorial  the 
notion  of  a  universal  deity,  ruling  every- 
thing, existed;  of  an  El  which  can  also  be 
paraphrased  by  Baal  (Lord),  Melech(king), 
Adonai  (ruler),  and  other  names  of  a  "high- 
est God"  as  Melchizedek  worshiped  him 
(Gen.  14.  18),  standing  above  lesser  gods. 
The  different  Baalim  of  the  Canaanites  were 
not  originally  mere  local  genii  or  demons, 
but  offshoots  of  a  general  heavenly  deity 
which,  under  the  name  of  Baal  samem,  is 
already  attested  as  one  of  the  oldest  Phceni- 

1  See  A.  Lang,  The  Making  of  Religion,  1898,  pp.  189  sqq. 


30  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

cian  inscriptions.1  One  may  also  see  how 
these  Baalim  show  so  many  relations  to  the 
sun  which  certainly  could  not  have  been  in- 
vented subsequently.  Does  one  seriously 
imagine  that  these  tribes  should  have  been 
so  narrow-minded  as  to  believe  that  their 
sun-god  which  they  saw  daily  completing  his 
sovereign  course  over  the  world,  manifesting 
his  power,  was  only  limited  to  the  few  square 
miles  which  their  tribe  inhabited?  The 
actual  limitation  was  the  result  of  the  politi- 
cal relation  of  the  god  to  the  individual  tribe, 
as  well  as  of  his  endowment  with  special 
local  predicates  and  its  worship  under  differ- 
ent images.  But  the  consciousness  of  its  uni- 
versality was  never  given  up,  and  it  asserted 
itself  in  this  that  over  the  localized  and 
specialized  gods,  one  easily  put  again  a 
supreme  god  of  a  general  character,  as  the 
Arabs  before  Mohammed  put  their  altar  over 
the  individual  tribal  deities  and  fetiches. 

And  yet,  even  aside  from  ethical  differ- 
ence, there  exists  an  essential  difference  be- 
tween the  gods  of  the  neighboring,  closely 
related  tribes  and  the  notion  of  the  God  of 
ancient   Israel.     It  consisted   in   this,   that 

iOrelli,  1.  c,  p.  232  sq.;  Bantsch,  1.  c,  p.  40. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  31 

Jehovah,  in  his  powerfully  expressed  person- 
ality, is  held  to  be  entirely  another  God  than 
the  deity  among  those  other  nations.  The 
deities  of  the  Canaanites,  Arameans,  etc.,  be- 
sides the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  had 
something  indefinite,  dissolving.  Hence  they 
could  easily  divide  into  male  and  female 
halves ;  could,  as  has  been  stated  above,  in- 
crease through  political  and  cultic  peculiari- 
ties to  a  plurality  and  turn  again  into  one 
another.  They  were  frequently  seen  to- 
gether in  a  single  phenomenon  (sensuous 
heaven,  light,  sun),  which  invites  the  setting 
up  of  a  supplementary  analogue  (earth,  dark- 
ness, moon,  etc.).  Since,  however,  one  was 
semi-conscious  of  its  more  general  character, 
its  contemplation  is  also  connected  with  dif- 
ferent phenomena  (for  instance,  with  the 
sun  and  at  the  same  time  with  a  certain 
planet)  ;  and  finally  this  worship  of  the  most 
glorious  phenomena  strove  for  the  worship 
of  a  more  impersonal  natural  whole,  as  the 
Babylonian  priest-religion  clearly  showed. 

In  Israel  Jehovah  remained  one  and  the 
same  indivisible  God.  True,  his  spirit  or 
his  name,  or  his  face,  was  distinguished  from 
himself;    but  from  this  originated  no  new 


$2  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

deities,  as  in  Phoenicia,  where  the  goddess 
Astarte  was  called  "the  name  of  Baal,"  thus 
being  an  emanation  of  the  god,  or  in 
Carthage,  where  the  goddess  Tanit  is  called 
"the  face  of  Baal."  1  If  we  ask  for  the  rea- 
son why  the  deity  of  the  Israelites  did  not 
multiply  in  like  manner  and  its  personality 
never  obliterated  itself,  we  must  point  in  the 
first  place  to  the  fact  that  as  we  have  seen 
Jehovah  appeared  unto  some  personalities 
like  Abram,  Moses,  and  ever  and  ever  mani- 
fested himself  to  some  leading  men.  In  the 
second  place  he  manifested  himself  ener- 
getically as  a  living  God  who  enters  into  life 
as  none  of  the  gods  of  Aram  or  Edom.  But 
these  manifestations  could  never  have  been 
understood  as  such  unless  now  and  then  men 
had  been  present  like  a  Moses,  Samuel,  Eli- 
jah, etc.,  who  added  the  word  to  the  deed 
and  explained  to  the  people  the  often  strange 
acts  of  this  God.  This  God  who  appeared 
in  absolute  personality  with  power  suffered 
no  other  beside  him.  For  "goddess"  the 
Hebrew  language  has  not  even  a  word.  The 
association  of  a  female  partner  would  appear 
as  an  abomination  to  every  Israelite  who 

1  Orelli,  1.  c,  pp.  240  and  242. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  33 

had  grown  up  in  the  religion  of  Moses, 
inoffensive  as  this  notion  was  to  all  Semitic 
tribes  of  remote  antiquity. 

We  nowhere  find  in  the  Bible  a  disposi- 
tion to  substitute  for  the  personally  con- 
scious God  a  semi-conscious  or  unconscious 
power  of  nature  or  power  of  fate.  This  per- 
sonality of  God  is  an  inner  bond  which  holds 
the  Bible  together  from  the  first  to  the  last 
leaf,  whereas  the  progressive  world-percep- 
tion of  other  nations  easily  led  to  the  putting 
of  a  supreme,  mere  impersonal  power  in 
place  of  the  desultory,  individual  deities; 
as  was  done  by  the  Egyptian  and  Babylonian 
astronomers  and  the  keen  thinkers  on  the 
other  hand  among  the  Brahmins.  In  the 
Old  Testament  we  find  the  opposite. 

I  must  also  expressly  oppose  those  Assyri- 
ologists  who  assert  that  the  biblical  narra- 
tors of  Genesis  or  of  the  books  of  Judges  or 
Samuel  or  even  of  the  books  of  the  Kings, 
had  in  view  an  astral-scheme,  an  order  of  the 
stars,  according  to  which  earthly  events  were 
ordered.  Whether  astronomical  figures  form 
the  basis  of  certain  primitive  forms  in  Gene- 
sis, for  instance  whether  the  number  twelve 
of  the  sons  of  Jacob  is  connected  with  the 


34  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

signs  of  the  zodiac,  is  an  archaeological  ques- 
tion which  we  will  not  argue  here.  What 
I  oppose  is,  that  the  narrators  intended  such 
a  connection  or  presupposed  such  as  already 
held  by  their  hearers  and  readers.  That,  for 
instance,  the  biblical  narrator  who  speaks  of 
Abram,  how  he  went  from  Aram  to  Canaan, 
should  have  thought  thereby  of  the  moon- 
god  and  intended  by  this  to  remind  his 
hearers  and  readers  of  the  wandering  moon ; 
or  that,  when  he  tells  of  Joseph  in  prison,  he 
had  in  view  the  god  Tammuz,  who  was  kept 
imprisoned  in  the  lower  world,  etc. — these 
are  entries  which  radically  destroy  the  spir- 
itual and  religious  stamp  of  these  simple, 
unconstrained  narratives.  The  more  thor- 
oughly the  famous  and  ingenious  astral  doc- 
trine of  the  ancient  Babylonians  is  pro- 
pounded, according  to  which  every  earthly 
event  has  its  heavenly  type  in  the  motions 
and  relations  of  the  stars,  the  more  force- 
fully are  we  impressed  by  the  very  great 
contrast  between  this  view  of  the  world  and 
the  Old  Testament  where  the  sovereign  God, 
Jehovah,  freely  rules  in  nature  and  history 
without  being  dependent  on  any  scheme. 
To  this  must  also  be  added  the  ethical 


Religion  of  the  Bible  35 

element.  This  is  by  no  means  absent  from 
the  old-Semitic  deity  (See  Gen.  19  and  20. 
11).  Where  the  "fear  of  God"  prevailed  in 
such  a  tribe,  the  right  of  the  stranger  was 
also  regarded,  who  was  not  indeed  the  pro- 
tege of  a  local  tribal  god  but  of  the  general 
deity.  In  the  Babylonian  version  of  the 
Deluge,  the  motive  for  destroying  the  human 
race  seemed  to  be  its  wickedness.  The  god 
Ea  upbraided  the  god  Bel  only  because  he 
destroyed  the  human  race  without  discrimi- 
nation instead  of  punishing  the  individual 
sinner  for  his  own  sin,  the  wicked  for  his 
wickedness,  and  from  the  Babylonian  peni- 
tential psalms  we  clearly  see  that  one  saw 
the  cause  of  suffering  not  only  in  the  dis- 
favor of  a  somehow  offended  God,  but  also 
in  offences  against  the  moral  law.  Of  such 
a  law  the  Babylonians  had  a  consciousness 
as  highly  developed  as  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
according  to  a  chapter  of  their  book  of  the 
dead.  But  not  only  did  the  conception  of  the 
magic  relation  between  the  divine  and  earth- 
ly sphere  check  among  both  peoples  the 
moral  influence  which  religion  should  have 
exercised,  religion  itself  was  too  much  con- 
fused with  nature. 


36  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

Where  the  deity  is  affiliated  with  nature 
it  easily  loses  its  ethically  sublime  character. 
Already  the  division  of  the  deity  into  per- 
sonal plurality  became  also  fatal  for  it  in 
this  respect.  From  the  plurality  of  gods 
arises  opposition,  and  where  the  gods  them- 
selves are  in  a  state  of  mutual  warfare,  the 
moral  authority  which  they  should  have  over 
against  man  is  greatly  weakened.  How 
could  the  deluge  make  an  overwhelming  im- 
pression on  the  sinner  when  the  greatest 
gods,  Bel  and  Ea,  afterward  quarreled  about 
it,  whether  it  would  not  have  been  better  had 
that  judgment  not  taken  place,  not  to  speak 
of  the  passionate  complaints  of  Istar  or  the 
demeanor  of  other  gods  who  for  fear 
crouched  like  dogs  at  the  threshold  of 
heaven?  We  see  in  these  myths  as  in  the 
poems  of  the  Hindoos,  Greeks,  Germans, 
etc.,  that  with  the  interweaving  of  the  deity 
into  the  nature,  its  moral  holiness  was  soon 
lost.  True  that  for  the  religious  conscious- 
ness these  controversies,  largely  invented  in 
mythical  tales,  receded  in  the  cult,  but  here 
too  they  annoyingly  asserted  themselves 
since  man  had  not  to  deal  with  one  holy 
authority  but  with  an  indefinite  number  of 


Religion  of  the  Bible  37; 

powers  whose  interests  were  divided.  One 
complained,  perhaps,  that  he  did  not  know 
which  god  he  had  offended,  or  he  made  use 
of  the  weakness  of  these  gods  in  order  to 
throw  the  favor  of  one  into  the  scale  of  the 
other ;  worse  than  this  was  the  natural  con- 
fusion of  the  deity  which  betrayed  itself  in 
the  very  cult  of  these  Semitic  nations.  This 
confusion  was  served  by  giving  free  vent  to 
natural  impulses,  and  again  with  killing  the 
natural  life  (human  sacrifices).  Lust  and 
cruelty  celebrated  their  orgies  in  honor  of  a 
deity  which  had  been  divested  of  its  higher 
moral  consecration.  It  is  known  that  the 
Israelites  were  surrounded  by  such  specifical- 
ly heathenish  vices  (prostitution  of  women 
and  men,  human  sacrifices,  especially  infant 
sacrifices)  and  that  they  often  took  hold  of 
the  people  owing  to  their  tendency  toward 
sensuality.  But  these  things  were  an  abom- 
ination to  the  holy  God  from  Sinai,  and  were 
again  and  again  cast  out  when  his  faithful 
professors  succeeded  in  awakening  the  peo- 
ple to  fidelity  toward  him.  Jehovah  was 
holy  according  to  his  nature,  that  is,  he  was 
superior  to  the  earthly  human  and  especially 
a  consuming  fire  for  all  iniquity  and  sin. 


38  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

Nothing  is  so  adapted  to  bring  out  this 
superiority  of  Jehovah  over  other  Semitic 
gods  than  a  comparison  of  the  historically 
related  Babylonian  myths  which  were,  how- 
ever, animated  by  an  entirely  different  spirit. 
This  has  been  sufficiently  demonstrated  in 
the  brochures  of  S.  Oettli,  Ed.  Koenig,  R. 
Kittel,  A.  Jeremias,  F.  Hommel,  and  others, 
called  forth  by  the  sensational  assertions  of 
the  opposite  in  the  Babel-Bible  controversy. 
At  present,  however,  everyone  can  convince 
himself  of  it  when  he  compares  the  now 
accessible  Babylonian  texts  with  the  biblical. 
Of  this  only  one  example : 

It  is  said  that  the  Adapa-myth1  is  another 
form  of  the  biblical  narrative  of  the  fall. 
This  Ad  a  pa  is  a  man  of  primeval  time,  cre- 
ated by  the  god  Ea  and  endowed  by  him  with 
wisdom  but  not  with  eternal  life.  He  min- 
istered to  this  his  god  as  priest  in  the  city 
of  Eridu.  Fishing  one  day  he  was  cast  into 
the  sea  by  the  bird  Zu,  the  south  wind ;  but 
out  of  revenge  he  broke  its  wings  so  that  it 
could  not  blow  for  seven  days.  Anu,  the 
highest  god  of  heaven,  became  angry  and 


1  Alfred  J eremias,  Das  alte  Testament  in  dem  Lichte  des 
alten  Orients,  p.  72  sq. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  39 

called  Adapa  to  account;  Anu  exclaimed: 
"No  mercy  I" ;  yet  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
appeased  by  the  doorkeepers  Tammuz  and 
Giszida,  and  ordered  them  to  prepare  a  meal 
for  Adapa  and  to  give  him  a  festive  raiment 
and  oil  for  anointing.  Adapa  accepted  the 
dress  and  oil  but  refused  food  and  drink  at 
the  suggestion  of  his  god  Ea  which  had  said 
to  him:  "Food  of  death  they  will  offer  to 
thee,  eat  not  thereof !  Water  of  death  they 
will  offer  to  thee,  drink  not  thereof !"  Anu 
was  surprised  at  this  refusal  since  he  had 
caused  that  food  of  life  and  water  of  life 
should  be  given  him,  to  give  him  life  eternal ; 
thus  Adapa  forfeited  this  gift. 

One  may  consider  Adapa  as  the  primitive 
man,  and  as  in  Genesis  3  we  may  here  find 
an  explanation  why  immortality  was  refused 
to  man — but  the  ethical  inferiority  of  this 
legend  over  against  the  wondrous  narrative 
in  Genesis  3  is  obvious.  Whether  the  good 
god  of  the  depth,  Ea,  grudged  his  beloved 
immortality,  thus  playing  the  false  part  of 
the  serpent,  or  whether  he  trusted  not  the 
fickle  god  of  heaven — at  any  rate  man 
became  the  victim  of  obedience,  not  of 
disobedience  toward  his  creator,   and  lost 


40  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

the  immortality  intended  for  him  in  conse- 
quence of  the  miserable  disunion  of  the 
gods. 

With  Jehovah,  the  God  of  ancient  Israel, 
truth,  righteousness,  kindness  are  inalienable 
attributes.  Moral  perfection  necessarily  be- 
longs to  his  nature.  As  such  he  already  ap- 
peared in  the  oldest  leaves  of  the  Bible  which 
contained  pre-Mosaic  matter.  He  punished 
pride  (Gen.  n.  6  sq.),  violation  of  the  right 
of  hospitality  (Gen.  19.  1  sqq.),  the  uni- 
versal corruption  of  sin  (Gen.  6.  5  sqq.), 
but  did  not  forget  the  righteous  one  who, 
like  Noah  or  Lot,  he  saved  from  destruction. 
We  admit  that  the  ruling  of  this  God  had 
in  itself  yet  much  that  is  inexplicable,  in- 
scrutable, and  that  his  grace,  like  his  wrath, 
could  not  always  be  traced  back  to  moral 
propositions,  but  might  sometimes  have  the 
semblance  of  arbitrariness.  But  this  is 
entirely  different  from  the  assertion  that  he 
acted  capriciously  and  unjustly.  His  vota- 
ries had  themselves  cast  this  reproach  far 
from  him  (Gen.  18.  25).  Conscious,  indeed, 
that  they  often  failed  to  understand  his  com- 
mands, nevertheless  they  could  not  imagine 
God  other  than  as  good,  and  the  more  they 


Religion  of  the  Bible  41 

developed  themselves  ethically,  the  purer 
they  apprehended  the  nature  of  their  God 
whom  they  knew  to  be  the  sum  of  ethical 
perfection,  and  that  every  man  stood  in  his 
sight  as  sinful  and  therefore  impure. 


42  The  Peculiarity  of  the 


IV 

Development    of    the    Knowledge    of 
God  in   Israel 

Development  in  Old  Testament  knowledge 
of  God  there  certainly  was.  But  whereas 
we  noticed  among  the  Babylonians,  Egyp- 
tians, Greeks,  Hindoos,  and  other  nations, 
that  with  the  purification  of  religion  personal 
life  in  the  conception  of  the  deity  recedes  and 
vanishes  in  the  minds  of  the  initiated,  in 
Israel  we  find  the  reverse.  God  is,  was,  and 
remains  the  One  who  is  sharply  differenti- 
ated from  the  world,  the  I  who  came  to  man 
with  a  "Thou"  and  demanded  from  the 
people :  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thine  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  might."  This  required  a 
personal  attitude  of  the  individual  heart 
toward  him  who  comprises  in  himself  full- 
ness of  personal  life,  but  so  that  neither  the 
unity  of  his  consciousness  nor  the  energy  of 
his  will  shall  suffer  thereby.  Should  the 
childlike  anthropomorphisms  which  are 
found  especially  in  the  oldest  leaves  of  the 


Religion  of  the  Bible  43 

Jehovah  document  be  stripped  off,  the  an- 
thropopathies  remain,  yea,  they  are  increased 
to  the  utmost  by  Hosea,  who  looked  deeper 
into  the  heart  of  God  than  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors. And  though  one  should  endeavor 
to  correct  occasionally  the  pathological  min- 
gling (see  Hos.  11.  9),  the  personal  is  re- 
tained as  an  inalienable  peculiarity  of  the 
God  revealed  to  Israel.  Where  reference  to 
a  personal  God  recedes  and  religion  is  more 
pleased  with  the  observance  of  legally  con- 
stituted ritual,  its  decay  is  also  obvious  as  in 
the  legalism  of  the  post-exilic  and  later  rab- 
binic Judaism. 

The  ascending  development,  however, 
which  the  Old  Testament  religion  underwent 
consists  in  this,  that  not  only  was  the  idea 
of  God  himself  purified  and  spiritualized,  the 
high  perceptions  of  a  Moses  being  improved 
by  later  men  of  God,  but  the  relation  of  the 
congregation  to  this  God  became  also  more 
personal. 

From  the  beginning  the  religion  of  Jeho- 
vah was  indeed  not  a  matter  of  a  certain 
caste  or  body;  it  was  not  so  that  only  the 
"initiated,' '  distinguished  by  speculative 
power,  could  have  perceived  the  nature  of 


44  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

this  God  and  his  true  qualities.  As  little  did 
this  knowledge  form  the  content  of  "mys- 
teries" to  which  the  initiated  only  were  ad- 
mitted. Jehovah  demanded  acknowledg- 
ment from  all  people,  all  estates,  sexes  and 
ages,  even  from  bondservants  and  strangers 
who  dwelt  among  the  people.  This  essen- 
tially distinguished  his  worship  from  that 
"monotheism"  which  one  may  find  at  its 
best  in  the  speculative  formulas  of  Babylo- 
nian and  Egyptian  priests.  The  god  whom 
they  saw  in  high  contemplation  was  on  this 
account  already  different  from  the  Israelitish 
because  it  was  not  objected  to  that  the 
common  people  worshiped  the  deity  in  a 
number  of  partial  phenomena. 

Only  in  an  isolated  manner  do  we  find  in 
those  religions  the  claim  of  a  god  to  autoc- 
racy. Thus  in  Egypt,  especially  under 
Amenhotep  (Amenophis)  IV,  about  1400 
B.  G,  who  in  opposition  to  the  Theban 
priesthood  and  the  powerful  god  Anion,  in- 
sisted upon  the  sole  worship  of  the  sun-god 
in  the  form  of  the  winged  disc  of  the  sun. 
On  this  account  he  was  considered  an  apos- 
tatized heretic.  It  is  more  likely  that  he 
borrowed  his  ideas  from  the  Semites  than 


Religion  of  the  Bible  45 

that  Moses,  whose  God  Jehovah  had  no  rela- 
tion to  the  sun,  should  have  learned  from 
him.  According  to  E.  Naville  his  more 
political  motives  induced  him  to  adopt  the 
rite  of  Heliopolis  without  forming,  however, 
a  higher  notion  of  his  god  than  the  other 
Egyptians. 

Recently  one  has  imagined  that  he  per- 
ceived an  analogy  to  this  Egyptian  struggle 
for  monotheism  in  the  commendation  of 
the  God  Nabu  (Nebo)  by  the  Assyrian  king 
Ramman  Nirari  (about  790  B.  C.),  and  he 
considered  it  not  as  accidental  that  shortly 
after  this  time  lived  that  Israelitish  prophet, 
Jonah,  the  son  of  Amittas,  who  preached  the 
true  God  at  Nineveh,  and  that  Amos  ap- 
peared at  Bethel  proclaiming  a  purified 
monotheism.  But  we  cannot  attach  much 
weight  to  this  coincidence.  We  read  indeed 
in  the  inscription  of  the  famous  Nebo-statue 
of  that  Assyrian  king  at  the  end:  "Man 
of  coming  times,  trust  in  Nebo!  trust  not 
in  any  other  god!"1 

A  tendency  to  perceive  the  divine  in  a 
centralized  form,  we  also  meet  with  in  the 


Orelli,  1.  c,  p.  185  sq, 


46  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

ancient  Babylonian  moon-cult,1  also  in  sun 
worship.2  But  aside  from  this,  that  that 
recommendation  of  the  god  Nebo  might  also 
have  other  motives  (sympathy  with  a  cer- 
tain priest-party,  etc.),  Amos  would  certain- 
ly have  strongly  opposed  the  presumption  to 
perceive  his  God  in  a  form  as  presented  by 
the  Nebo-statue.  Jehovah  was  absolutely  an 
entirely  different  being ;  and  the  appearance 
of  the  herdsman  of  Tekoa  was  not  caused 
by  a  theological  wave  which  had  brought 
purer  ideas  from  the  interior  of  Asia.  As 
he  himself  vividly  describes  it,  he  was  called 
by  his  God  from  the  flock  to  his  prophetical 
office  with  an  impetuosity  which  he  could 
withstand  as  little  as  one  can  guard  himself 
from  terror  when  suddenly  the  roar  of  a 
lion  is  heard  in  immediate  vicinity  (see 
Amos  7.  14  sq.  and  3.8).  It  is  not  a  learned 
priest  who  is  imbued  with  foreign  influences 
and  brings  a  new  teaching  to  his  people,  but 
a  common  man  of  the  people  who  was  so 
apprehended  by  his  God  that  he  had  the 
courage  to  oppose  the  heads  of  the  secular 
and  spiritual  government.    He  sounded  the 

1  Orelli,  p.  182  sq.,  the  Hymn  to  the  Moon-god. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  192  sq. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  47 

trumpet  of  alarm  to  warn  them  of  the  judg- 
ment of  that  God  who  has  always  proved 
himself  to  be  the  all-powerful  and  holy  one 
in  Israel. 

That  this  God  had  power  over  all  nations, 
he  by  no  means  proclaims  as  something  new 
but  recalls  the  fact  as  something  old.  This 
only  must  be  admitted,  that  as  the  political 
horizon  expanded  at  that  time,  so  also  this 
divine  ruler  assumed  grander  dimensions  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  nation.  The  particular- 
ism of  restricted  isolation  was  roughly 
broken  through  by  events,  and  one  learned 
to  look  also  at  the  designed  leading  of  other 
nations  by  Jehovah.  That  it  served  a  large- 
ly concerned  plan  with  a  positive  object  in 
view,  Isaiah  made  especially  clear,  and  this 
purpose  or  goal  of  the  history  of  the  world 
has  since  been  kept  in  view  by  the  prophets 
in  an  ever  more  insistent  manner.  The 
Mosaic  God,  in  spite  of  his  terrific  majesty, 
revealed  that  grace  and  mercy  were  of  his 
innermost  essence  (Exod.  34.  6  sq.).  More 
and  more  the  knowledge  grew  that  the 
nations  existed  not  simply  to  glorify  God 
as  objects  of  his  wrathful  judgment,  or  to 
serve  him  as  instruments  of  judgment  on 


48  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

his  own  people,  but  that  they  were  also 
objects  of  the  loving  care  of  God  and  were 
destined  after  their  obstinacy  was  broken 
down  to  serve  the  true  God  who  would  also 
gloriously  manifest  himself  in  Israel  for 
them,  in  order  that  they  should  take  part 
in  his  blessings  and  saving  mercies.  The 
very  Babylonian  exile  which  on  the  one 
hand  served  to  fill  the  Jews  with  an  insupera- 
ble repugnance  to  the  idolatrous  aberrations 
of  heathenism,  brought  them  on  the  other 
hand  into  closer  contact  with  the  human 
race  outside  and  contributed  no  little  to  the 
fact  that  illuminated  minds  among  them 
conceived  the  religion  of  Jehovah  in  a  more 
universal  manner. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  49 


V 

Development  of  the  Relation  of  the 
Old  Testament  Church  to  God 

Contemporaneously  with  this  development 
a  progressive  individualization  of  religion 
was  effectuated.  It  showed  itself  more  as 
a  relation  of  God  to  individual  members  of 
the  congregation,  whereas  formerly  the  in- 
dividual receded  behind  the  national.  In 
this  too  it  has  often  been  generalized  too 
much  and  judged  too  categorically.  It  has 
been  asserted  that  in  older  times  the  Israelit- 
ish  religion,  in  general,  knew  of  no  relation 
of  the  individual  to  Jehovah  but  only  of  the 
tribe  or  people  to  God.  Only  the  people 
were  the  object  of  divine  love,  care,  and 
sympathizing  guidance.  The  individual 
could  not  confidently  expect  it  in  private  or 
personal  matters ;  this  was  an  exaggeration 
of  a  true  perception.  How  God  cared  for 
the  individual  even  in  the  smallest  things 
and  punishes  the  sins  of  the  individual,  the 
oldest  patriarchal  stories  have  already 
proved.     One  could  not  put  aside  reference 


50  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

to  them  with  the  consideration  that  an 
Abram,  Isaac,  Jacob,  as  types  of  the  future 
people,  had  to  stand  in  just  the  same  rela- 
tion to  Jehovah  as  the  whole  people  after- 
ward stood.  In  the  consciousness  of  the 
pious  Israelites  these  fathers  were  not  com- 
mon ideas  but  personalities  of  flesh  and 
blood,  and  their  example  showed  how  Jeho- 
vah dealt  with  his  votaries,  how  he  visited 
them  in  mercy  or  punished  their  shortcom- 
ings. That  he  thus  stood  to  them  in  a  cer- 
tain personal  relation  and  treated  them  in- 
dividually was  understood  as  a  matter  of 
course.  In  those  family-stories  (history  of 
Joseph)  we  find  overwhelming  evidences 
that  God  not  only  keenly  observed  the  indi- 
vidual acts  of  men  and  rewarded  or  punished 
them  according  to  incorruptible  justice,  but 
also  so  directed  them  in  a  most  specific  way 
that  they  would  finally  serve  his  plan.  Thus 
migrating  men  of  Israel  certainly  encour- 
aged themselves  by  Jacob's  example  whom 
his  God  so  faithfully  preserved  abroad  and 
helped  him  to  fortune  and  prosperity.  And 
the  women  in  ancient  Israel,  a  Hannah  or 
the  Shunammite,  the  friend  of  Elisha,  in 
their   domestic   concerns   and   matrimonial 


Religion  of  the  Bible  51 

cares  could  not  think  otherwise  of  God's 
rule  than  as  was  told  of  the  wives  of  Abram, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  where  affecting-  traits  are 
not  wanting  which  serve  to  show  that  God 
cared  also  for  the  tender  feelings  of  a  wife 
and  mother  and  espoused  their  cause  (Gen. 
29.  31 ;  21.  16  sq.). 

It  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  that  in 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  a  rule  we  only  hear  of  God's  ways  with 
the  people  as  a  whole.  Family  life  is  only 
mentioned  where  it  became  of  importance 
for  all  Israel.  In  like  manner  the  prophets 
as  a  rule  were  only  concerned  about  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people.  Nevertheless  it  is  hardly 
correct  when  one  imagines  that  men  of  God 
like  Samuel,  Nathan,  Isaiah,  and  others,  con- 
sidered public  affairs  only  as  worthy  of  spe- 
cial illumination  by  God's  prophetical  word. 
One  certainly  asked  of  them  instruction  also 
in  private  affairs,  instruction  not  merely  in 
the  sense  of  a  legal  decision,  but  also  of 
direction,  counsel,  and  comfort  in  perplexing 
questions  and  under  heavy  personal  inflic- 
tions. With  what  loving  care  such  a  man  of 
God  could  even  enter  into  the  little  needs  of 
the  private  life  and  remove  them  through 


52  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

God's  light  and  power,  the  history  of  Elisha 
shows.  It  has  been  asserted  against  a  "min- 
isterial" activity  of  this  man  that  in  those 
narratives  from  the  colonies  of  the  prophets 
the  question  was  only  of  alleviating  outward 
needs  (in  the  present  pastoral  case  it  occu- 
pied perhaps  no  less  a  place),  but  the  main 
thing  here  is  this,  that  the  individual  life 
also  (not  merely  the  communal  or  national 
life)  was  governed  by  God's  powers  of 
grace;  and  when,  as  we  accidentally  learn, 
the  same  prophet  on  the  new  moons  or  sab- 
baths gathered  around  his  dwelling  on 
Mount  Carmel  the  religious  people  from  the 
neighborhood  (2  Kings  4.  23),  he  there 
spoke  to  them  in  the  name  of  his  God  cer- 
tainly not  only  of  national  affairs,  but 
entered  also  into  their  personal,  spiritual 
wants. 

It  is,  however,  correct  that  in  the  course 
of  time  the  relation  between  God  and  the 
congregation  deepened  and  became  thereby 
more  personal  and  individual.  The  small 
communities  of  the  faithful  which  Elisha 
gathered  around  him,  in  part  in  the  groups 
of  the  prophets,  were  at  that  time  a  kind  of 
ccclesiola  in  ecclesia;    such  existed  before 


Religion  of  the  Bible  53 

and  constituted  at  the  time  of  Elijah  those 
seven  thousand  who  bowed  not  their  knee 
unto  Baal.  Here  already  tribal  relationship 
or  consanguinity  with  national  theoretical 
recollections  no  longer  formed  or  condi- 
tioned communion,  at  least  not  such  alone, 
but  belief  in  the  ancient  deeds  of  Jehovah. 
Allegiance  to  him  was  decisive  and  also  that 
communion  which  the  prophetic  word  had 
established  and  fostered.  This  was  the 
kernel  of  the  people  of  God  which,  according 
to  Isaiah  and  all  his  successors,  was  destined 
to  form  the  "remnant"  of  the  future,  a  rem- 
nant in  which  the  national  church  should  live 
on  through  all  the  judgments  of  God  and 
extend  into  the  time  of  final  salvation  in 
order  to  realize  some  day  the  idea  of  the 
theocracy. 

In  these  prophetical  hopes  of  the  future 
the  later  so-called  Messiah  occupies  a  promi- 
nent place.  In  this  also  the  strong  tendency 
of  this  religion  toward  personal  develop- 
ment expresses  itself.  The  living  and  ruling 
"anointed  of  Jehovah"  occupied  in  religious 
respect  already  an  important  position;  and 
though  analogies  are  found  for  it  elsewhere, 
also  it  is  peculiar  to  the  Israelitish  religion 


54  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

that  it  expects  its  consummation  from  a  king 
of  the  future,  in  whom  the  Godhead  and 
humanity  shall  meet  the  closest  relation. 
This  hope  is  not  connected  with  a  future 
priest  but  with  a  scion  of  the  house  of  David, 
a  king  after  the  heart  of  Jehovah.  In  him 
Israel  would  somehow  be  personified  in 
order  to  enter  upon  the  closest  union  with 
God  thinkable.  When  the  people  in  their 
representative  head  should  be  so  harmoni- 
ously united  with  the  Lord,  the  serenity  of 
God's  pleasure  in  his  people  and  the  pros- 
perity of  the  latter  comes  of  itself. 

It  is  true  with  this  son  of  David,  rich  in 
honors,  there  is  a  remarkable  contrast  in 
the  picture  of  the  "servant  of  Jehovah," 
who  is  delineated  in  certain  portions  of  the 
second  book  of  Isaiah  (Isa.  42.  1-4;  49.  1-6; 
50.  4-9 ;  52.  13-53).  But  these  very  peculiar 
descriptions  of  the  perfect  servant  form  a 
grand  proof  of  the  effort  of  this  religion 
toward  personification.  For  the  idea  of  this 
servant  and  his  office  proceeds  very  properly 
from  the  calling  of  Israel  as  the  people  of 
Jehovah.  This  people  were  called  to  the 
service  which  the  servant  rendered,  but 
proved  themselves  very  unfit  for  it.     Thus 


Religion  of  the  Bible  55 

comes  before  the  eye  of  the  seer  a  figure 
who  performs  it  without  fault.  That  this 
figure  cannot  be  identical  with  the  people, 
present  or  future,  is  most  clearly  seen  from 
passages  like  Isa.  42.  6  sq. ;  49.  6;  53.  8, 
where  the  people  appeared  rather  as  the 
object  of  his  deliverance  and  atonement.  In 
the  picture,  delineated  in  a  strictly  personal 
manner,  a  plurality  of  godly,  prophetically 
active  sufferers  and  confessors  might  at  most 
be  uniformly  comprised,  but  should  one  have 
asked  the  seer  who  outlined  the  picture 
whether  he  expected  the  fulfillment  through 
an  individual  or  a  collective  plurality,  ac- 
cording to  my  conviction  he  would  have 
answered  in  the  former  sense.  For  this 
view  speaks  not  only  the  analogy  of  the  Is- 
raelitish  history,  where  in  the  greatest  epochs 
an  individual  formed  the  medium  through 
which  the  whole  work  of  the  Lord  was 
mediated,  thus  Moses  and  Joshua,  Samuel, 
David ;  but  the  servant  himself  is  very  clear- 
ly made  knowable  as  a  second  Moses  or 
Joshua,  for  instance,  Isa.  49.  6,  and  also  the 
references  to  the  Hope  which  one  expected 
from  the  future  son  of  David,  are  by  no 
means    wanting,    as    Sell  in    has    especially 


56         The  Peculiarity  of  the 

proved.  It  is  therefore  a  scion  who  pro- 
ceeded from  the  people  but  by  far  surpass- 
ing them  in  dignity  and  disposition,  who 
would  help  the  people  to  a  right  attitude 
before  God  and  at  the  same  time  bring  the 
distant  inhabitants  of  the  world  to  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  revelation  of  Je- 
hovah. 

The  many-voiced  echo  of  prophetical  rev- 
elations we  find  in  the  Psalms.  These  allow 
us  to  look  into  a  more  living,  more  affect- 
ing, more  personally  reciprocal  relation  be- 
tween Jehovah  and  his  worshipers  than  the 
hymns  of  the  Riga  Veda,  or  the  Babylonian 
penitential  litanies  with  which  they  have 
already  been  compared.  It  is  also  a  mistake 
to  assume  that  the  I  of  the  Psalms  is  always 
collective,  spoken  in  the  name  of  the  congre- 
gation as  has  recently  been  done  again  by 
prominent  specialists.  True,  the  personifica- 
tion of  Israel  as  a  national  or  cultic  unit  in 
preexilic  as  in  postexilic  time  is  nothing 
unusual.  See  the  "Thou"  in  the  Decalogue 
and  in  the  Aaronic  blessing  (Num.  6.  24- 
26).  Why  should  a  singer  not  speak,  pray, 
praise  in  the  name  of  his  congregation  ?  In 
the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  those  apocryphal 


Religion  of  the  Bible  57 

hymns  from  the  time  of  Pompey,  this  is 
doubtless  the  case.  But  the  prayer  of  Ha- 
bakkuk  (Hab.  3)  speaks,  after  verse  14,  in 
the  name  of  the  congregation.  In  the 
Lamentations  of  Jeremiah  such  seems  also 
to  be  the  case ;  and  in  the  prophets  we  fre- 
quently find  examples  or  statements  of  such 
hymnological  performance  of  the  congrega- 
tion where  it  speaks  of  itself  with  I.  Such 
hymns  may  also  be  expected  in  the  Psalms ; 
but  it  is  an  unauthorized  preconception  to 
suppose  such  there  throughout,  for  there  are 
hymns  in  which  he  who  prays  is  clearly 
enough  distinguished  from  the  congregation 
for  whose  edification  he  gratefully  wishes  to 
make  known  his  personal  experience  of  sal- 
vation; see  Psalm  22  (verse  26),  40  (verse 
9  sq.),  and  others.  Outer  experiences,  and 
inner  feelings  especially,  are  very  often  too 
individualistic  not  to  be  wholly  of  a  personal 
nature ;  and  as  a  rule  those  individual  songs 
of  prayer  very  clearly  detach  themselves 
from  the  cultic  hymns  mostly  belonging  to 
the  later  postexilic  time,  which  were  evi- 
dently composed  for  the  religious  service  of 
the  congregation.  Even  if  one  takes  a  song 
like  Psalm  23,  where  the  question  might 


58  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

perhaps  arise  whether  it  was  sung  in  the 
name  of  a  righteous  individual  or  of  the 
godly  congregation,  feelings  of  communion 
with  God  are  here  (as  in  so  many  of  these 
glorious  hymns  of  prayer,  and  also  in  the 
penitential  hymns,  Psa.  32,  51)  so  devout 
and  warm  that,  at  any  rate,  they  must  have 
been  first  experienced  by  the  individual  be- 
fore they  could  have  been  put  into  the  mouth 
of  others.  Thus  the  Psalter  is  a  rich  source 
of  proofs  how  personally  and  individually 
this  Old  Testament  religion  developed  in  the 
congregation.  And  these  proofs  belong  to 
many  centuries.  The  statement  supported 
by  the  entire  tradition  that  King  David  had 
given  an  impulse  to  psalmody,  deserves  by 
no  means  the  skeptical  refusal  which  today 
is  frequently  bestowed  upon  it.  Whoever 
reads  the  description  of  David's  behavior  at 
the  rebellion  of  his  son  Absalom  (2  Sam. 
15.  19),  which  was  certainly  composed  by  a 
contemporary,  will  at  the  outset  believe  this 
king,  with  his  fervent  and  tender  as  well  as 
truly  pious  feeling,  capable  of  such  lyrical 
Prayers  as  Psa.  3,  4,  51,  and  others.  And 
whoever  knows  the  prophets  Amos,  Hosea, 
Isaiah,  Micah,  Jeremiah,  cannot  doubt  that 


Religion  of  the  Bible  59 

the  preexilic  Israel  had  its  cultic  lyric  poetry, 
and  he  will  not  be  surprised  to  hear  in  Psa. 
137.  3,  that  it  was  known  in  Babylon.  Our 
present  Psalter  is  indeed  the  hymn-book  of 
the  second  temple,  not  in  the  sense  that  all 
these  hymns  were  composed  after  the  exile, 
but  rather  that  just  as  in  our  church  hymn- 
books,  an  old  treasure  of  hymns  was  received 
into  it  when  many  things  may  have  been 
changed  in  language  or  otherwise  through 
frequent  use. 

This  much  may  safely  be  ascertained  from 
the  Psalter  as  from  other  sources,  that  per- 
sonal communion  of  the  individual  with  God 
was  at  all  times  very  active  among  pious 
Israelites.  True,  the  hieratic  apparatus  was 
still  highly  valued ;  but  already  in  the  older 
time,  just  as  in  this,  we  find  close  com- 
munion of  pious  individuals  with  God.  And 
progressive  prophetical  revelation  developed 
this  personal  relation  ever  more  freely. 
Think  of  it,  how  the  great  prophets  of  the 
eighth  century  abolished  sacrifice  as  non- 
essential, yea,  as  rather  impeding  true  atti- 
tude toward  God;  how  Jeremiah  repre- 
sented the  covenant-sign  of  circumcision  as 
worthless  unless  the  ears  and  hearts  were 


60  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

circumcised;  how  the  same  prophet  de- 
stroyed the  trust  in  the  temple  as  the  holy 
habitation  of  God  and  considered  it  as  un- 
necessary in  a  better  future  (Jer.  3.  16), 
even  the  sacred  palladium  of  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant,  when  the  Mosaic  covenant 
should  be  replaced  by  a  New  Covenant 
which  would  be  founded  not  upon  outwardly 
written  tables  but  upon  changed  hearts  (31. 
31  sqq.).  But  let  me  also  observe  how 
Ezekiel,  who  likewise  so  strongly  empha- 
sized change  of  heart  as  the  condition  of 
future  right  relation  with  God  (Ezek.  36. 
25  sqq.),  at  the  same  time  asserted  as  none 
else  did  the  individual  treatment  of  the  indi- 
vidual by  the  righteous  God  and  thereby 
also  most  emphatically  enjoined  upon  human 
pastorship  its  responsibility  (Ezek.  18.  1 
sqq.;  33.  1  sqq.). 

It  is  evident  how  much  such  teachings 
could  contribute  to  the  independence  of 
religious  personalities  in  the  congregation; 
only  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  such  veri- 
ties, when  once  apprehended  by  the  indi- 
vidual, must  of  themselves  become  the  com- 
mon property  of  the  people  or  of  the  right- 
eous.   The  external  character  of  piety  which 


Religion  of  the  Bible  6i 

the  following  centuries  brought  shows  the 
reverse.  Religious  cognitions  do  not  evolve 
like  technical  inventions  and  practices;  on 
this  account  advance  in  this  department  is 
neither  constant  nor  rectilinear.  But  there 
came  an  epoch  for  Judaism  when  all  the 
noblest  sap  which  had  come  up  in  the  tribe 
produced  a  blossom  in  which,  humanly 
speaking,  the  tribe  surpassed  itself. 


62  The  Peculiarity  of  the 


VI 

The  Perfect  Bearer  of  God-Communion 
— Christ 

Jesus  Christ  professed  the  God  of  Moses 
and  of  the  prophets.  So  far  he  brought  no 
new  religion.  But  being  united  with  God 
in  a  unique  manner,  he  brought  a  new  one 
by  bringing  about  through  his  person  a  new 
revelation  of  men  to  God,  and  thus  made 
this  relation  more  personal. 

He  himself  called  this  God  his  Father  and 
by  so  doing  attested  a  unique  connection  in 
which  he  stood  with  God,  a  relation,  which 
in  contradistinction  to  all  men,  even  to  his 
disciples,  must  belong  to  him.  The  distance 
between  the  Master  and  his  disciples  of 
which  we  spoke  above  (p.  19)  becomes  here 
the  greatest,  hence  his  authority,  which  is 
the  highest.  Not  only  according  to  his  own 
statements  but  also  according  to  the  claims 
of  his  appearance,  Jesus  stood  in  such  a  near 
relation  to  God  that  the  terms  "inspiration," 
"revelation,"  fail  to  convey  the  full  idea. 
God  did  not  merely  appear  unto  him,  did 


Religion  of  the  Bible  63 

not  merely  reveal  himself  to  him,  did  not 
merely  send  his  Spirit  into  him,  but  over 
against  the  world  and  men  he  knew  himself 
as  one  with  God.  The  future  "theocracy" 
was  at  the  same  time  his  kingdom.  "He 
that  seeth  me  seeth  the  Father."  But  no 
trace  of  pantheism  is  found  here  as  if  he 
could  no  more  distinguish  the  /  and  Thou. 
The  Father  is  so  consciously  and  clearly  dis- 
tinguished from  his  own  I,  that  on  a  certain 
occasion  he  could  also  say:  "Not  my  will, 
but  thine  be  done."  And  whenever  he  spoke 
of  the  Father  it  was  done  with  a  fervor,  an 
unreserved  love,  a  childlike  trust,  that  one 
must  feel  how  real  for  him  was  this  personal 
life  of  the  Father.  Deeper  yet  than  all  the 
prophets  he  knew  the  nature  of  God  as 
personal.  The  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  God 
is  without  analogy  among  the  religious 
geniuses  whom  humanity  has  produced. 
The  meaning  of  religion  has  obtained  in  him 
a  peerless  perfection.  Here  we  have  the 
perfect  relation  of  God  and  man  in  the  Son 
of  man  who  was  at  the  same  time  the  Son 
of  God. 

Mohammed  scrupled  at  nothing  so  much 
as  that  God  should  have  had  a  son.     His 


64  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

Allah,  of  whose  strictly  undivided  unity  he 
was  so  proud,  lacked  the  fullness  of  the  per- 
sonal life  which  was  perfected  in  the  Father 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Allah's  relation  to  Moham- 
med himself  is  much  more  outwardly.  The 
"prophet"  to  whom,  in  the  language  of  the 
Mohammedan  theologians,  Allah  threw  his 
revelation-sayings  like  shooting-stars,  stood 
in  no  inner  relation  to  him — with  his  inner 
man  he  had  nothing  to  do.  This  is  most 
obviously  perceived  from  this,  that  an  ethic- 
ally satisfying  influence  upon  his  person  did 
not  proceed  from  these  revelations.  This 
want,  which  strongly  contrasts  his  mission 
with  that  of  the  Old  Testament  prophets, 
and  when  compared  with  the  conduct  of 
Christ  altogether  denotes  a  pitiful  decline, 
threw  also  an  unfavorable  light  upon  the 
god  preached  by  him.  This  want  was  in 
general  no  less  in  his  zealous  professors. 
They  too  obtained  no  living  reciprocal  rela- 
tion between  God  and  man;  and  where  a 
mystical  absorption  in  Allah  was  sought  as 
in  the  case  with  the  £ufi  under  Persian  in- 
fluence, the  deity  dissolved  pantheistically. 
Islamism  was  not,  as  its  professors  thought, 
the    highest    degree    of    monotheism,    but 


Religion  of  the  Bible  65 

showed  that  it  was  about  to  relapse  into  the 
naturalism  of  heathenism. 

Nor  did  Buddha,  whom  one  is  inclined  to 
put  by  the  side  of  Christ  as  the  founder  of  a 
"universal  religion/'  deserve  this  honor. 
What  induced  Sakamuni  to  seek  deliverance 
whereby  he  could  first  deliver  himself  and 
then  all  men,  was  evil,  sickness,  age,  death. 
Fear  of  these  made  him  an  ascetic  and  when 
he  saw  that  the  sore  Brahmanic  self -affliction 
did  not,  after  all,  deliver  him  from  the  fear 
of  death,  he  became  a  meditating  philoso- 
pher. While  meditating  he  imagined  that 
he  found  the  means  of  deliverance  for  all 
men  in  the  knowledge  of  the  four  fundamen- 
tal truths  whose  practical  result  is  that  man 
must  free  himself  from  all  lust,  all  desire  for 
life,  and  therefore  extricate  himself  from 
family  ties  and  worldly  affairs,  in  order  to 
be  released  from  the  entire  enchainment  of 
causes  and  effects  which  hold  man  in  the 
spell  of  the  evil  world. 

Already  this  starting-point  of  the  mission 
of  Buddha  stood  below  that  which  prompted 
Jesus  to  redeem  men.  Jesus  cared  for  some- 
thing higher  than  that  he  himself  could 
escape    from   evil    and    afterward   deliver 


66  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

others  from  it.  He  cared  for  the  kingdom 
of  God;  for  the  will  of  his  Father.  He 
perceived  the  root  of  all  evil  to  be  the 
estrangement  of  men  from  God. 

Buddha  also  perceived  that  evil  had  an 
ethical  cause.  He  strongly  emphasized  that 
every  deed,  whether  good  or  bad,  is  closely 
followed  by  its  reward ;  but  he  knew  nothing 
of  God,  the  Father.  The  gods  of  India 
were  for  him  indifferent  figures.  Man 
needed  no  God  for  his  deliverance ;  he  must 
deliver  himself  by  keen  thinking  and  strength 
of  mind ;  there  is  no  other  way.  Buddhism 
preached  a  moral  philosophy  and  its  five 
fundamental  commandments  were  almost 
identical  with  those  of  Moses  contained  in 
the  second  Table ;  but  of  the  first  Table,  of 
duties  toward  God,  Buddhism  knew  nothing. 
Prayer  is  therefore  omitted;  in  its  place  is 
cosmos,  contemplation,  absorption  into  the 
unconscious  which  gives  a  blessed  foretaste 
of  Nirvana;  the  evaporation  of  personal 
existence  and  consciousness,  the  final  hope 
of  the  true  disciple  of  Buddha. 

Here  we  miss  that  which  is  constitutive 
for  every  religion,  the  relation  of  man  to 
the    deity.      Ancient,    original    Buddhism 


Religion  of  the  Bible  67 

should  be  called  a  life-philosophy  rather  than 
a  religion.  It  had  never  become  a  religion 
of  the  people,  but,  like  Manichseism,  would 
have  remained  an  order  for  the  world-escap- 
ing cultured  had  it  not  experienced  an  essen- 
tial change  in  the  interest  of  popularization, 
whereby  its  too  highly  strained  idealism  took 
an  opposite  turn.  Had  Buddha  disdained 
every  cult  he  now  would  have  become  an 
object  of  worship  among  a  number  of  other 
gods  associated  with  him.  The  cult  became 
external,  mechanical  beyond  anything  seen 
in  many  religions.  It  is  true  thatSakyamuni 
should  not  be  held  responsible  for  this  degen- 
eration, but  without  it  Buddhism  had  never 
become  one  of  the  most  diffused  religions. 
The  small  elite,  however,  which  at  present 
conforms  to  Buddha  in  decided  alienation 
from  family  and  worldly  affairs,  has  no  real 
religion  in  its  system,  but  an  insufficient 
equivalent  for  it.  A  religion  without  belief 
in  deity,  without  prayer,  without  hope,  lacks 
all  that  which  is  necessary  for  religion.  The 
heroic  virtues,  contempt  of  the  world  and  of 
self-devotion,  may  grow  also  on  philosoph- 
ical soil;  but  the  love  in  which  Buddhism 
glories  must  not  be  confounded  with  that  of 


68  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

the  Christian.  It  lacks  the  root  which  the 
latter  has  in  its  faith.  Only  when  man  knows 
God  as  his  Father,  can  he  truly  love  his  fel- 
low-men as  his  brothers.  Schopenhauer  has 
indeed  imagined  that  theBuddhist  love  ought 
to  be  preferred  to  the  Christian  because  it 
goes  out  indiscriminately  also  to  animals; 
but  in  this  we  see  rather  the  inferiority  of 
this  contemplation  of  the  world  which  pro- 
ceeded from  Indian  naturalism.  Buddhist 
love  did  not  concern  itself  with  the  divine  in 
man,  it  was  mere  sympathy  with  nature,  and 
over  and  above  it  is  strongly  influenced  by 
calculation.  One  does  not  really  love  his 
fellow-man  but  wishes  to  get  rid  of  himself, 
and  to  do  this  he  must  help  him.  Where 
there  is  no  positive  life-aim,  love  becomes 
aimless. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  understand  how  in 
our  days  Buddhism  could  be  successful  in 
any  degree  on  the  soil  of  civilized  Christen- 
dom— a  doctrine  which  neither  knows  how 
to  satisfy  religious  need  nor  is  able  to  put 
before  man  a  world-task  which  gives  some 
value  to  life — did  we  not  know  that  many 
have  made  shipwreck  of  belief  in  God  and 
his  gospel  of  love  concerning  the  world,  and 


Religion  of  the  Bible  69 

consequently  have  fallen  back  on  a  wretched 
pessimism  for  which  the  profound  Indian 
itinerant  preacher  seems  to  offer  them  a 
worthy  setting.  Add  to  this  that  modern 
Buddhist  missionaries  do  not  demand  strict 
Buddha-discipline,  with  its  monastic  renun- 
ciation, and  that  over  and  above  all  the  sys- 
tem is  mixed  with  a  strong  admixture  of 
modern  aromatics,  especially  American  spir- 
itism, and  is  thus  made  palatable  for  "mod- 
ern" truth. 


yo         The  Peculiarity  of  the 


VII 

The  Consummation  of  the  Congrega- 
tion    Through     a     Personal 
Relation  to  Christ 

In  formal  respects  Buddhism  shows  many 
points  of  contact  with  Christianity.  Con- 
sideration must  be  especially  had  to  this,  that 
Buddha  did  not  consider  belonging  to  a 
nation  or  caste  the  basis  for  forming  a  con- 
gregation, but  assent  to  his  teaching  and  its 
observance,  thus  making  it  an  entirely  per- 
sonal matter.  National  Brahminism  was 
thus  developed  through  Sakamuni  into  a 
personal  religion.  On  biblical  soil  Chris- 
tianity made  the  same  progress  over  Juda- 
ism. 

The  congregation  of  Christ  was  estab- 
lished according  to  another  principle  than 
that  of  the  Old  Testament.  Not  birth,  not 
the  law  of  the  country  or  people  determined 
discipleship,  but  the  personal  attitude  toward 
Jesus.  "Christians"  (Acts  n.  26;  26.  28; 
1  Pet.  4.  16),  adherents  of  Christ,  the  peo- 
ple were  called  who  believed  on  him.    This 


Religion  of  the  Bible  71 

"sect"  was  composed  of  a  people  of  both 
sexes  from  all  manner  of  origin,  nation,  lan- 
guage, education,  but  by  its  very  belief  in 
Jesus  as  the  Anointed  of  God  it  was  inward- 
ly kept  together,  so  that  their  unity  and 
brotherly  love  surprised  everybody.  Later 
development  must  not  make  us  forget  that 
Christianity  was  originally  and  according  to 
its  essence  not  a  national  but  a  personal  reli- 
gion. The  inner  personal  attitude  of  the 
individual  determines  his  relation  to  the  con- 
gregation, to  the  Church  of  Christ.  Herein 
consists  an  essential  moment  of  the  progress 
of  spiritualization  and  inwardness  from  the 
Old  to  the  New  Covenant,  from  Judaism  to 
Christianity. 

It  is  no  less  important  to  acknowledge  and 
to  hold  fast  that  the  new  relation  in  which 
believing  Christians  stand  to  God  as  their 
Father,  is  not  merely  opened  by  Jesus,  dis- 
covered and  proclaimed,  but  is  conditioned 
by  his  person.  Even  according  to  the  three 
first  gospels  Jesus  presented  himself  as  the 
One  who  decided  on  reception  into  or  exclu- 
sion from  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  per- 
sonally remitted  men  their  sins  just  as  he 
healed  their  diseases.     His  many  healings 


*j2         The  Peculiarity  of  the 

which  appertained  to  his  daily  work  were  not 
merely  proofs  of  mercy;  for,  according  to 
his  mode  of  thinking,  he  did  not  care  so 
much  that  these  children  of  men  should 
enjoy  a  few  more  years  the  use  of  their 
sound  limbs,  but  rather  for  this,  that  they 
should  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  For 
said  he:  "It  is  better  for  thee  to  enter  into 
life  maimed,  than  having  two  hands  to  go 
into  hell,"  etc.  (Mark  9.  43-47).  These 
healings  had  rather  also  the  expressed  pur- 
pose to  justify  him  as  such  who  had  power 
to  forgive  sins  (Mark  2.  10  sq.)  and  alto- 
gether to  prove  him  as  the  promised  Christ 
(Matt.  11.  4  sq. ;  see  also  11.  21  sqq.). 
Where  Jesus  gave  his  disciples  powers  of 
this  kind,  to  heal  diseases,  to  drive  out  im- 
pure spirits,  etc.,  he  told  them  to  act  In  his 
name,  as  it  were  in  his  place.  He  also  gave 
them  not  merely  a  doctrine  concerning  God 
and  directions  for  a  God-pleasing  life  which 
were  also  valid  aside  from  his  person,  so 
that  they  could  practice  his  injunctions  also 
without  him,  but  what  he  taught  them  and 
made  them  do,  was  to  stand  in  immediate 
relation  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  whose  King 
he  is,  which  kingdom  came  in  his  person  and 


Religion  of  the  Bible  73 

the  full  development  of  which  was  to  be 
expected  in  the  future. 

But  a  necessary  preliminary  condition 
which  must  be  fulfilled  ere  this  glorious  con- 
summation could  come  about  was,  according 
to  the  statements  often  repeated  by  Jesus, 
his  impending  suffering,  death,  and  resurrec- 
tion in  the  near  future.  These  assurances  of 
Jesus  have  not  received  as  yet  their  proper 
recognition  by  some  of  our  modern  theolo- 
gians. Just  as  formerly  in  the  old  rational- 
ism, so  now  on  the  part  of  some,  a  teaching 
is  pointed  out  as  the  essential  service  which 
Jesus  rendered  to  humanity,  which  could 
just  as  well  have  been  founded  on  itself  as 
upon  his  person,  a  teaching  of  the  goodness 
and  love  of  the  heavenly  Father,  as  whose 
child  one  may  feel  himself  in  all  conditions 
of  life  and  despite  of  the  accusations  of  con- 
science, and  of  the  brotherly  love  which  one 
should  show  to  all  men,  even  to  his  enemies 
— a  teaching,  therefore,  which  one  may  see 
already  fostered  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
which  Judaism  could  pluck  as  ripe  fruit  with- 
out further  special  revelation  of  God.  It  is 
not  easy  for  these  theologians  to  explain  the 
great  stress  which  Jesus  put  upon  the  neces- 


74  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

sity  of  his  suffering  and  violent  death.  They 
would  look  upon  this  suffering  and  death 
only  as  a  kind  of  appendix  and  specimen  to 
that  very  teaching.  Here  Jesus's  trust  in 
God  proved  itself  under  the  most  difficult 
circumstances  conceivable,  and  showed  his 
love  to  men  in  that  he  held  back  this  proof 
of  it  to  the  last. 

I  confess  that  this  explanation  of  his  un- 
deniably voluntary  death,  considered  in  a 
purely  human,  historical  way,  strikes  me  as 
improbability  itself.  Whoever  compares  the 
careers  of  other  great  founders  of  religion, 
of  a  Confucius,  Buddha,  Mohammed,  must 
above  all  things  be  surprised  at  the  very  dis- 
proportionate shortness  of  the  ministry  of 
Jesus.  If  he  desired  above  everything  to 
impress  men  with  such  teaching  by  his  word 
and  example,  he  had  to  preach  and  propa- 
gate this  truth  as  long  as  possible,  in  order 
that  it  would  have  time  to  take  sufficient 
root  in  closer  and  wider  circles;  and  with 
his  unlimited  trust  in  God,  he  could  not 
doubt  at  all  that  a  long  and  successful  activi- 
ty was  assigned  to  him,  from  which  one 
could  expect  that  it  would  serve  its  purpose. 
Instead,  he  speaks  almost  from  the  begin- 


Religion  of  the  Bible  75 

ning  and  again  and  again  of  the  cross,  of 
his  coming  suffering,  and  violent  death; 
yea,  he  speaks  of  it  in  such  a  manner  (for 
instance,  Mark  10.  45;  Matt.  20.  28)  as  if 
he  considered  it  as  the  chief  object  of  his 
coming,  the  climax  of  his  mission!  He 
could  not  have  had  in  view  a  mere  didactic 
martyr-death.  Before  definitely  formulating 
his  teaching  in  any  way,  and  before  it  was 
understood  in  any  degree — if  only  by  his 
most  select  disciples — and  remembering  all 
the  misunderstandings  of  his  teachings  unto 
the  last  evening — how  could  he  run  so 
prematurely  to  a  martyr-death  to  confirm 
by  his  example  the  truth  of  his  teaching! 
And  if  he  wanted  this,  if  he  really  meant  to 
illustrate  merely  the  victory  of  trust  in  God, 
or  as,  for  instance,  Ritschl  explained  the 
meaning  of  ransom,  if  he  wished  to  show  to 
his  followers  that  one  must  not  fear  death 
since  the  pious  became  not  objectless  in 
death — he  should  not  have  died  this  death; 
he  ought  to  have  died  like  a  Socrates,  with- 
out sign  of  pain,  convincing  his  disciples  by 
his  serene  face  that  death  is  nothing.  He 
dared  not  be  sore  amazed  and  very  heavy 
in   Gethsemane   at   the  mere   approach   of 


j6         The  Peculiarity  of  the 

death ;  he  dared  not  exclaim  from  the  cross : 
"My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me !"  This  end,  leaving  aside  the  resurrec- 
tion as  problematical  or  unhistorical,  is  a 
bad  pattern  for  his  followers.  Only  one  in- 
ference can  be  drawn  from  it :  "If  they  do 
these  things  in  a  green  tree,  what  shall  be 
done  in  the  dry?"  If  trust  in  God  has  not 
kept  the  most  godly  of  the  sons  of  God  from 
such  a  dreadful  end,  what  right  have  we  to 
expect  from  God  anything  better! 

Wholly  aside  from  the  Christian  faith,  it 
seems  to  me  an  impossibility  from  a  purely 
historical  and  religio-comparative  point  of 
view  to  ascribe  to  Jesus  that  scheming  in- 
tention, considering  his  evidently  spontane- 
ous surrender  to  death.  If  we  only  had  the 
three  synoptists,  and  no  Gospel  of  John,  and 
not  one  Pauline  Epistle,  I  could  only  infer 
from  the  words  of  Jesus  and  his  entire 
demeanor  that,  according  to  the  prophecies 
of  Scripture,  he  seems  to  have  considered 
his  suffering  and  death  as  his  principal  work 
for  which  his  teaching  was  preparatory; 
and  the  voluntary  surrender  of  his  life  unto 
death  he  seems  to  have  conceived  as  a  neces- 
sary atonement  for  the  sins  of  men,  and  by 


Religion  of  the  Bible  yy 

which  he  expected  to  redeem  many  from  the 
curse  of  sin  and  its  consequences.  In  other 
words,  what  one  calls  the  Pauline  doctrine 
of  redemption  is  only  the  development  of 
that  which  Jesus  consciously  endeavored  to 
obtain. 

By  this  position  which  Jesus  occupied  over 
against  his  congregation,  Christianity  essen- 
tially differed  not  only  from  Judaism  but 
also  from  Islamism,  Buddhism,  and  other 
spiritual  religions.  Mohammed  is  merely  a 
prophet,  though  "the  seal  of  the  prophets,, 
is  merely  a  guide  to  lead  men  back  to  salva- 
tion by  the  "straight  way."  But  Jesus  claims 
to  be  himself  "the  Way."  Buddha  pretends 
to  be  the  enlightened  one  who  knew  the 
truth.  But  Jesus  called  himself  the  "Light 
and  the  Truth."  Herman  Oldenberg,  the 
acknowledged  authority  on  primitive  Bud- 
dhism, once  said  that  we  could  wholly  fancy 
away  the  person  of  Buddha  without  any 
detriment  to  his  system.  He  is,  then,  only 
one  of  the  Buddhas  who  have  appeared  in 
the  course  of  the  aeons  to  make  known  again 
the  hidden  or  forgotten  way  to  deliverance 
from  the  burden  of  existence. 

It  is  entirely  different  with  the  Gospel  of 


yS  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

Christ.  By  eliminating  from  it  the  person 
of  Jesus  Christ,  it  loses  its  firm  hold  and 
deeper  content.  The  statement  that  we  are 
children  of  God,  of  the  God  who  is  Love — 
which  may  be  stated  as  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity— would  only  too  soon  succumb  to 
opposing  experiences  which  rush  against  it 
from  the  outside  world  and  from  one's  own 
consciousness  and  conscience.  And  even  if 
it  could  yet  scantily  assert  itself,  it  would 
lose  the  deeper  content  which  it  has  in  the 
gospel  and  would  sink  down  to  a  vague  feel- 
ing which  we  find  in  all  grades  of  culture,  in 
religions  of  the  most  varied  kind  where  God 
is  called  on  as  Father  of  mankind,  save  that 
no  higher  power  of  life  proceeds  from  this 
consciousness. 

But  if  we  emphasize  the  ethical  as  well  as 
the  essential  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  a  com- 
parison of  Confucius  and  the  Chinese  mas- 
ters is  to  be  recommended.  The  old  rational- 
ism has  not  seldom  compared  Jesus  and 
Confucius.  It  did  it  with  a  certain  right  be- 
cause, as  a  moralist,  it  esteemed  Jesus  the 
most.  Now  it  is  remarkable  that,  to  the 
question  whether  there  exists  a  single  word 
which  could  serve  as  a  central  maxim  for 


Religion  of  the  Bible  79 

the  whole  life,  Kong-tse  answered :  "Is  not 
reciprocity  such  a  word?  What  you  wish 
not  done  unto  you,  do  also  not  to  others."1 
Thus,  what  Jesus  indicated  (Matt.  7.  12) 
as  the  contents  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets, 
Master  Kong  praised  already  550  years 
earlier  as  the  sum  of  ethics.  Jesus,  it  is  true, 
goes  further  by  demanding:  "Love  your 
enemies!"  This  the  Chinese  expressly  re- 
fused with  the  words:  "By  recompensing 
the  wrong  with  goodness,  how  then  shall 
goodness  be  recompensed?  Recompense 
wrong  with  right  and  goodness  with  good- 
ness." But  these  are  very  much  mistaken 
who  think  that  Jesus  was  the  first  who 
preached  love  for  enemies.  Kong-tse  refused 
it  as  an  exaggeration  for  the  very  reason 
that  his  predecessor  Laotse  had  taught  it. 
And  when  in  certain  quarters  Jesus  had  re- 
cently been  represented  with  great  partiality 
as  a  social,  moral  philosopher,  he  had  in 
that  Micius,2  a  not  unworthy  analogue,  who 
was  indeed  not  considered  orthodox  but 
wholly  proceeding  from  the  religious  ideas 
of  ancient  China,  taught :  "As  heaven  loves 


1  Orelli,  1.  c,  p.  69  sq.  2  Ibid.,  1.  c,  pp.  74  sqq. 


80  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

all  men  without  discrimination  and  does 
good  to  all,  thus  let  one  love  all."  His 
maxim  was:  "Love  that  of  the  other  like 
your  own.  Would  all  act  accordingly,  all 
social  relations  would  turn  out  happily." 
He  expects  therefrom  an  undisturbed  gov- 
ernment of  the  heaven  over  all  the  earth. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  significant  that  the 
objection  that  such  a  kingdom  of  mutual 
love  cannot  be  brought  about  on  account  of 
the  egotism  of  man,  he  answered:  "If  the 
good  example  would  be  given  from  above 
and  reward  and  punishment  would  be  used 
for  that  end,  it  could  be  accomplished.  How 
have  courtiers  put  themselves  already  out 
of  the  way  to  please  the  rulers !  And  if  they 
only  would  condescend  to  such  an  exercise 
of  love,  one  would  experience  that  love 
begets  love  and  therefore  yields  much 
profit."  This  optimism  with  reference  to 
the  human  will  and  power  is  characteristic 
of  all  these  Chinese  teachers.  They  always 
imagine  that  man  on  the  whole  is  good,  and 
if  he  is  only  set  right  and  sees  the  good 
example,  it  cannot  fail.  Jesus  did  not  share 
this  optimism ;  otherwise  he  would  not  have 
prepared  for  death. 


Religion  of  the  Bible  8i 

We  see,  however,  that  the  specific  in 
Christianity  does  not  lie  even  in  the  teach- 
ing of  a  humanity  of  the  furthest  extent; 
its  essence  lies  in  the  person  of  Jesus  united 
with  God  and  in  his  unique  intercession  for 
man.  By  this  the  disciple  of  Jesus  is  also 
inseparably  united  to  this  person.  For 
Christ  is  not  only  the  teacher  but  the  priestly 
mediator,  who  assures  for  him  access  to 
the  heavenly  Father.  This  gives  to  genuine 
Christianity  its  special  peculiarity.  We  have 
not  a  hieratic  apparatus,  an  impersonal  insti- 
tution, which  assures  to  the  individual  his 
salvation ;  this  is  a  degeneration  of  genuine 
Christianity  in  the  churches  of  a  Catholic 
type.  It  is  also  a  degeneration  when  in  cer- 
tain newer  Protestant  theology  it  is  some- 
times taught.  As  a  member  of  the  Christian 
Church  I  have  part  in  Christ.  Rather,  when 
and  so  far  as  I  have  a  share  in  Christ  have 
I  become  and  am  a  member  of  the  true, 
believing  Church  of  Christ. 

For  this  we  may  only  refer  to  a  charac- 
teristic life-form  of  the  Christian  Church. 
In  comparative  religion,  ministerial  acts 
peculiar  to  a  religion  are  always  especially 
important.     Now  Christianity  has  only  two 


82  The  Peculiarity  of  the 

such  forms  which  specifically  belong  to  it: 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  is  of 
great  interest  to  note  how  strongly  these 
two  acts  testify  the  indispensableness  of  a 
living  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  per- 
son of  Jesus.  Holy  baptism  is  given  in  the 
name  of  Jesus.  It  is  an  immersion  and 
submersion  of  the  human  person ;  the  going 
down,  as  it  were,  of  one's  own  ego,  in  whose 
place,  through  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ,  is 
to  come  another,  a  new  one.  "Know  ye 
not,"  writes  Paul,  "that  as  many  of  us  as 
were  baptized  into  Jesus  Christ,  were  bap- 
tized into  his  death?  Therefore  we  are 
buried  with  him  by  baptism  into  death :  that 
like  as  Christ  was  raised  up  from  the  dead, 
even  so  we  should  walk  in  newness  of  life" 
(Rom. 6. 3  sq.).  This,  however,  is  the  Chris- 
tian rite  of  initiation  which  is  performed  on 
those  who  believe  in  Christ.  Only  after  one 
has  given  up  his  own  person  and  taken 
Christ,  as  it  were,  in  its  stead,  does  he  be- 
come, on  the  whole,  a  member  of  the  church. 
Baptism,  the  "  washing  of  regeneration," 
means  thus  a  radical  break  with  the  past.  Is 
it  not  strange  that  Israelites,  Mohammedans, 
Hindoos,  who  inwardly  are  closely  connect- 


Religion  of  the  Bible  83 

ed  with  Christianity,  show  an  insuperable 
aversion  to  baptism  and  cannot  bring  them- 
selves to  receive  it  ?  This  does  not  rest  upon 
a  mere  prejudice  against  an  outward  for- 
mality, but  on  a  correct  feeling  that  many 
Christians  have  with  regard  to  baptism. 
These  feel  that  in  it  there  lies  the  giving 
up  of  the  natural  man,  which  is  more  pain- 
ful than  mere  circumcision  or  the  tooth- 
drawing  of  the  Bora,  or  the  cruel  consecra- 
tions of  the  Mithra-service.  It  concerns 
directly  the  death  of  the  old  man  in  the  name 
of  Christ. 

But  when  a  man  through  his  incorpora- 
tion in  Christ,  the  Risen  One,  has  come  to 
a  new  life  from  above,  he  can  only  preserve 
this  life  by  communion  with  the  person  of 
Christ.  This  expresses  as  clearly  as  word 
and  symbol  can  speak,  the  Lord's  Supper. 
Here  Jesus  assigns  himself  as  meat  and 
drink.  The  Christian  is  to  feed  and  to  live 
upon  him  who  personally  is  the  Giver  of 
the  highest  salvation.  Jesus  could  not  more 
strongly  express  the  connection  of  each  indi- 
vidual disciple  to  his  person.  Here  are 
entirely  confirmed  the  Johannine  statements : 
"I  am  the  bread  of  life."    "Without  me  ye 


84         The  Peculiarity  of  the 

can  do  nothing!"     "Abide  in  me,  and  I  in 
you,"  etc. 

The  idea  of  the  church,  the  communion 
of  Christians  among  themselves,  is  indeed 
of  great  importance  in  Christianity;  but 
compared  to  the  relation  of  the  individual  to 
Christ,  this  communion  of  the  Christians 
among  themselves  is  secondary,  for  it  is 
established  by  that  and  always  remains  con- 
ditioned by  that.  The  closest  communion 
of  Christians  comes  about  only  through  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who  comes  to  every  one  and 
becomes  his  personal  possession  after  that 
he  has  become  a  believer  in  Christ.  Thus 
the  Christian  state  is  perfected  by  a  com- 
munion of  the  human  with  the  divine  per- 
sonal Spirit,  which  cannot  be  obtained  out- 
side of  Christianity.  We  see  Christianity 
as  the  religion  in  which  the  divine  personal 
life  opens  the  purest  and  richest,  and  per- 
vades man  in  the  most  personal  manner.  On 
this  account  it  alone  perfectly  realizes  the 
idea  of  religion.  It  is  the  true,  the  perfect 
religion. 


i,cal  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1012  01146  1490 


DATE  DUE 

„;-„    l 

GAYLORD 

FDIKTEOINU.i  A. 

n<u 


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